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Copyright N° 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 






























































- 


SUNSHINE LIBRARY. 


Aunt Hannah and Seth. By James Otis. 

Blind Brother (The). By Homer Greene. 

Captain’s Dog (The). By Louis finault. 

Cat and the Candle (The). By Mary F. Leonard. 
Christmas at Deacon Hackett’s. By James Otis. 
Christmas=Tree Scholar. By Frances Bent Dillingham. 
Dear Little Marchioness. 

The Story of a Child’s Faith and Love. 

Dick in the Desert. By James Otis. 

Divided Skates. By Evelyn Raymond. 

Gold Thread (The). By Norman MacLeod, D.D. 

Half a Dozen Thinking Caps. By Mary Leonard. 
How Tommy Saved the Barn. By James Otis. 
Ingleside. By Barbara Yechton. 

J. Cole. By Emma Gellibrand. 

Jessica’s First Prayer. By Hesba Stretton. 

Laddie. By the author of “ Miss Toosey’s Mission.” 
Little Crusaders. By Eva Madden. 

Little Sunshine’s Holiday. By Miss Mulock. 

Little Peter. By Lucas Malet. 

Master Sunshine. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser. 

Miss Toosey’s Mission. By the author of “ Laddie.” 
Musical Journey of Dorothy and Delia. 

By Bradley Gilman. 

Our Uncle, the Major. A Story of 1765. By James Otis. 
Pair of Them (A). By Evelyn Raymond. 

Playground Toni. By Anna Chapin Ray. 

Play Lady (The). By Ella Farman Pratt. 

Prince Prigio. By Andrew Lang. 

Short Cruise (A). By James Otis. 

Smoky Days. By Edward W. Thomson. 

Strawberry Hill. By Mrs. C. F. Fraser. 

Sunbeams and Moonbeams. By Louise R. Baker. 

Two and One. By Charlotte M. Vaile. 

Wreck of the Circus (The). By James Otis. 

Young Boss (The). By Edward W. Thomson. 


THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY, 

NEW YORK. 





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HOW SIX PAIR OF EYES COULD LOOK OVER THE SAME BOOK. 

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THE LIBRARY OF 
CONGRESS, 
Two Cowls Received 

♦UN. 13 1901 


Copyright entry 

Uvi *3, *?©> 

CfjLASS ** XXc. N®. 

//3-og 


COPY B. 


Copyright, 1901, 

By THOMAS Y. CROWELL & CO. 


ol 




Dedicated 


TO 

LITTLE SUNSHINE’S LITTLE FRIENDS. 










CONTENTS 


Chapter I. page. 

The Railway Journey 1 

Chapter II. 

Little Sunshine in Scotland 16 

Chapter fll. 

A Trip to the Sea 32 


Chapter IV. 

On Sunshiny Hillside 47 

Chapter V. 

On the Water Puff-puff 59 

Chapter VI. 

Excursion on the Loch 76 

Chapter VII. 

Amusements at the Glen 91 

Chapter VIII. 

Fishing for Salmon 104 

Chapter IX. 

The Photograph 123 

Chapter X. 

The End of the Holiday 142 

Chapter XI. 

Little Sunshine Home Again 159 

v 



LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER I. 

W HILE writing this title, I paused, consider- 
ing whether the little girl to whom it 
refers would not say of it, as she some- 
times does of other things, "You make a mis- 
take.” For she is such a very accurate little 
person. She can not hear the slightest alteration 
of a fact. In herself and in other people she 
must have the truth, the whole truth, and noth- 
ing but the truth. For instance, one day, over- 
hearing her mamma say, “ I had my shawl with 
me,” she whispered, “ No, mamma, not your 
shawl; it was your water-proof.” 

Therefore, I am sure she would wish me to 
explain at once that “ Little Sunshine ” is not her 
real name, but a pet name, given because she is 
such a sunshiny child ; and that her “ holiday ” 
was not so much hers — seeing she was then not 
three years old, and every day was a holiday — 
as her papa’s and mamma’s, who are very busy 
people, and who took her with them on one of 
their rare absences from home. They felt they 
could not do without her merry laugh, her little 


2 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


pattering feet, and her pretty curls — even for a 
month. And so she got a “ holiday ” too ; though 
it was quite unearned: as she has never been to 
school, and her education has gone no farther 
than a crooked S, a round 0, an M for mamma, 
and a D for — but this is telling. 

Of course Little Sunshine has a Christian name 
and surname, like other little girls, but I do not 
choose to give them. She has neither brother nor 
sister, and says “ she doesn’t want any — she had 
rather play with papa and mamma.” She is not 
exactly a pretty child, but she has very pretty 
yellow curls, and is rather proud of “ my curls.” 
She has only lately begun to say “ I ” and “ my,” 
generally speaking of herself, baby-fashion, in the 
third person — as “ Sunny likes that,” “ Sunny 
did so-and-so,” etc. She always tells every thing 
she has done and every thing she is going to do. 
If she has come to any trouble — broken a tea- 
cup, for instance — and her mamma says, “ Oh, 
I am so sorry! Who did that?” Little Sunshine 
will creep up, hanging her head and blushing, 
“ Sunny did it; she won’t ever do it again.” But 
the idea of denying it would never come into her 
little head. Every body has always told the exact 
truth to her, and so she tells the truth to every 
body, and has no notion of there being such a 
thing as falsehood in the world. 

Still, this little girl is not a perfect character. 
She sometimes flies into a passion, and says “I 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


won’t” in a very silly way — it is always so 
silly to be naughty. And sometimes she feels 
thoroughly naughty — as we all do occasionally 
— and then she says, of her own accord, “ Mam- 
ma, Sunny had better go into the cupboard ” (her 
mamma’s dressing-closet). There she stays, with 
the door close shut, for a little while; and then 
comes out again smiling, “ Sunny is quite good 
now.” She kisses mamma, and is all right. This 
is the only punishment she has ever had — or 
needed, for she never sulks, or does any thing 
underhand or mean or mischievous; and her wild- 
est storm of passion only lasts a few minutes. To 
see mamma looking sad and grave, or hear her 
say, “ I am so sorry that my little girl is naughty,” 
will make the child good again immediately. 

So you have a faint idea of the little person 
who was to be taken on this long holiday; first 
in a “ puff-puff,” then in a boat — which was to 
her a most remarkable thing, as she lives in a 
riverless county, and, except once crossing the 
Thames, had scarcely ever beheld water. Her 
mamma had told her, however, of all the wonder- 
ful things she was to see on her holiday, and for 
a week or two past she had been saying to every 
visitor that came to the house, “ Sunny is going 
to Scotland. Sunny is going in a puff-puff to 
Scotland. And papa will take her in a boat, and 
she will catch a big salmon. Would you like to 
see Sunny catch a big salmon? ” For it is the 


4 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


little girl’s firm conviction that to see Sunny 
doing any thing must be the greatest possible 
pleasure to those about her — as perhaps it is. 

Well, the important day arrived. Her mamma 
was very busy, Little Sunshine helping her — to 
“ help mamma ” being always her grand idea. 
The amount of work she did, in carrying her 
mamma’s clothes from the drawers to the port- 
manteau, and carrying them back again ; watching 
her dresses being folded and laid in the trunk, 
then jumping in after them, smoothing and pat- 
ting them down, and, lastly, sitting upon them, 
can not be told. Every now and then she looked 
up, “ Mamma, isn’t Sunny a busy girl?” — 
which could not be denied. 

The packing-up was such a great amusement 
— to herself, at least — that it was with difficulty 
she could be torn from it, even to get her dinner, 
and be dressed for her journey, part of which was 
to take place that day. At last she was got ready, 
a good while before any body else, and then she 
stood and looked at herself from head to foot in a 
large mirror, and was very much interested in the 
sight. Her travelling-dress was a gray water- 
proof cloak, with a hood and pockets, where she 
could carry all sorts of things — her gloves, a bis- 
cuit, the head of her dolly (its body had come off), 
and two or three pebbles, which she daily picked 
up in the garden, and kept to wash in her bath 
night and morning, “ to make them clean,” for 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


5 


she has an extraordinary delight in things being 
“ quite clean/’ She had on a pair of new boots 
— buttoned boots, the first she ever had — and 
she was exceedingly proud of them, as well as of 
her gray felt hat, underneath which was the usual 
mass of curly yellow hair. She shook it from 
side to side like a little lion’s mane, calling out, 
“ Mamma, look at Sunny’s curls ! Such a lot of 
curls ! ” 

When the carriage came to the door, she watched 
the luggage being put in very gravely. Then all 
the servants came to say good-bye to her. They 
were very kind servants, and very fond of Little 
Sunshine. Even the gardener and his wife looked 
quite sorry to part with her, but in her excitement 
and delight the little lady of course did not mind 
it at all. 

“ Good-bye ! good-bye ! I’m going to Scotland,” 
she kept saying, and kissing her hand. “ Sunny’s 
going to Scotland in a puff-puff. But she’ll come 
back again, she will.” 

After which kind promise, meant to cheer them 
up a little, she insisted on jumping into the car- 
riage “all by her own self,” — she dearly likes 
doing any thing “ all my own self ” — and, kissing 
her hand once more, was driven away with her 
mamma -and her nurse (whose name is Lizzie) to 
meet her papa in London. 

Having been several times in a “puff-puff,” 
and once in London, she was not a bit frightened 


6 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


at the streets or the crowd. Only in the confusion 
at Euston Square she held very tight to her mam- 
ma’s hand, and at last whispered, “ Mamma, take 
her ! up in you arms, up in you own arms ! ” — her 
phrase when she was almost a baby. And though 
she is now a big girl, who can walk, and even run, 
she clung tightly to her mamma’s neck, and 
would not be set down again until transferred 
to her papa, and taken by him to look at the 
engine. 

Papa and his little girl are both very fond of 
engines. This was such a large one, newly painted, 
with its metal-work so clean and shiny, that it was 
quite a picture. Though sometimes it gave a 
snort, and a puff, like a live creature, Sunny was 
not afraid of it, but sat in her papa’s arms watch- 
ing it, and then walked gravely up and down 
with him, holding his hand, and making all sorts 
of remarks on the things she saw, which amused 
him exceedingly. She also informed him of what 
she was going.to do — how she should jump into 
the puff -puff, and then jump out again, and sleep 
in a cottage, in a quite new bed, where Sunny had 
never slept before. She chattered so fast, and was 
so delighted at everything about her, that the time 
went rapidly by; and her papa, who could not 
come to Scotland for a week yet, was obliged to 
leave her. When he kissed her, poor Little Sun- 
shine set up a great cry. 

“ I don’t want you to go away. Papa ! papa ! ” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


7 


Then bursting in to one of her pathetic little 
furies, “ I won’t let papa go away ! I won’t ! ” 

She clung to him so desperately that her little 
arms had fairly to be untied from round his neck, 
and it was at least two minutes and a half before 
she could be comforted. 

But when the train began to move, and the car- 
riageful of people to settle down for the journey, 
Sunny recovered herself, and grew interested in 
watching them. They were all gentlemen, and 
as each came in, mamma had suggested that if he 
objected to a child, he had better choose another 
carriage; but nobody did. One — who looked like 
the father of a family — said : “ Ma’am, he must 
be a very selfish kind of man who does object to 
children — that is, good children.” So mamma 
earnestly hoped that hers would be a good child. 

So she was — for a long time. There were such 
interesting things to see out of the window: puff- 
puffs without end: some moving on the rails — 
some standing still — some with a long train be- 
hind them — some without. What perplexed and 
troubled Little Sunshine most, was to see the men 
who kept running across the rails and ducking 
under the engines. She got quite excited about 
them. 

“ That poor man must not go on the rails, else 
the puff-puff will run over him and hurt him. 
Then Sunny must pick him up, and take him to 
her nursery, and cuddle him.” (She always wants 


s 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


to cuddle every body who is ill or hurt.) “ Mam- 
ma, tell that poor man he mustn't go on the rails.” 

And even when mamma explained that the man 
knew what he was about, and was not likely to let 
himself be run over by any puff-puff, the little 
girl still looked anxious and unhappy, until the 
train swept right aw~ay into the open country, with 
fields and trees, and cows and baa-lambs. These 
last delighted her much. She kept nodding her 
head and counting them. “ There’s papa baa- 
lambs, and mamma baa-lambs, and little baby baa- 
lambs, just like Little Sunny; and they all run 
about together; and they are so happy.” 

Every thing, in deed, looked a& happy as the 
lambs and the child. It was a bright September 
day, the trees just beginning to change color, and 
the rich midland counties of England — full of 
farms and pasture-lands, with low hills sloping up 
to the horizon — looked specially beautiful. But 
the people in the carriage did not seem to notice 
any thing. They were all gentlemen, as I said, 
and they had all got their afternoon papers, and 
were reading hard. Not much wonder, as the 
newspapers were terribly interesting that day — 
the day after the capitulation of Sedan, when the 
Emperor Louis Napoleon surrendered himself and 
his army to King William of Prussia. When 
Little Sunshine has grown a woman, she will un- 
derstand all about it. But now she only sat look- 
ing at the baa-lambs out of the window, and now 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


9 


and then pulling, rather crossly, at the newspaper 
in her mamma’s hand. “ 1 don’t want you to 
read ! ” In her day, may there never be read such 
dreadful things as her mamma read in those news- 
papers ! 

The gentlemen at last put down theirs, and be- 
gan to talk together, loudly and fast. Sunshine’s 
mamma listened, now to them, now to her little 
girl, who asked all sorts of questions, as usual. 
“What’s that? you tell me about that,” she is 
always saying, as she twists her fingers tight in 
those of her mamma, who answers at once, and 
exactly, so far as she knows. When she does not 
know — and even mammas can not be expected 
to understand every thing — she says plainly, 
“ My little girl, 1 don’t know.” And her little 
girl always believes her, and is satisfied. 

Sunshine was growing rather tired now ; and the 
gentlemen kept on talking, and did not take any 
notice of her, or attempt to amuse her, as stran- 
gers generally do, she being such a lively and 
easily-amused child. Her mamma, fearful of her 
restlessness, struck out a brilliant idea. 

Little Sunshine has a cousin Georgy, whom she 
is very fond of, and who a few days before had 
presented her with some pears. These pears had 
but one fault — they could not be eaten; being 
as hard as bullets, and as sour as crabs. They tried 
the little girl’s patience exceedingly, but she was 
very good. She went every morning to look at 


10 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


them as they stood ranged in a row along mamma’s 
window-sill, and kissed them one by one to make 
them ripe. At last they did ripen, and were 
gradually eaten — except one, the biggest and 
most beautiful of all. “ Suppose,” mamma sug- 
gested, “that we keep it two days more, then it 
will be quite ripe; mamma will put it in her 
pocket, and we will eat it in the train, half-way 
to Scotland.” Little Sunshine looked disap- 
pointed, but she did not cry, nor worry mamma 
— who, she knows, never changes her mind when 
once she says No — and presently forgot all about 
it. Until, lo! just as the poor little girl was get- 
ting dull and tired, with nothing to do, and no- 
body to play with, mamma pulled out of her 
pocket — the identical pear! Such a pear! so 
large and so pretty — almost too pretty to eat. 
The child screamed with delight, and immedi- 
ately began to make public her felicity. 

“ That’s mamma’s pear ! ” said she, touching the 
coat-sleeve of the old gentleman next her — a very 
grim old gentleman — an American, thin and 
gaunt, with a face not unlike the wolf in Little 
Red Ridinghood. “ That mamma’s pear. Mam- 
ma ’membered (remembered) to bring Sunny that 
pear ! ” 

“ Eh ? ” said the old gentleman, shaking the 
little fingers off, not exactly in unkindness, but 
as if it were a fly that had settled on him and 
fidgeted him. But Sunny, quite unaccustomed to 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


li 


be shaken off, immediately drew back, shyly and 
half offended, and did not look at him again. 

He went on talking, in a cross and “ cantan- 
kerous ” way, to another gentleman, with a gray 
beard — an Indian officer, just come from Cash- 
mere, which he declared to be the finest country 
in the world; while the American said angrily 
“ that it was nothing like Virginia.” But as 
neither had been in the other country, they were 
about as able to judge the matter as most people 
are when they dispute about a thing. Neverthe- 
less, they discussed the question so violently, that 
Little Sunshine, who is not used to quarrelling, 
or seeing people quarrel, opened her blue eyes 
wide with astonishment. 

Fortunately, she was engrossed by her pear, 
which took a long time to eat. First, it had to 
be pared — in long parings, which twisted and 
dangled like Sunshine’s curls. Then these par- 
ings had to be thrown out of the window to the 
little birds, which were seen sitting here and 
there on the telegraph wires. Lastly, the pear had 
to be eaten slowly and deliberately. She fed 
mamma, herself, and Lizzie too, turn and turn 
about, in the most conscientious way; uttering at 
each mouthful that ringing laugh which I wish I 
could put into paper and print; but I can’t. By 
the time all was done, Sunshine had grown sleepy. 
She cuddled down in her mamma’s arms, with a 
whispered request for “Maymie’s apron.” 


12 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Now here a confession must be made. The one 
consolation of life to this little person is the flan- 
nel apron upon which her first nurse used to wash 
her when she was a baby. She takes the two 
corners of it to stroke her face with one hand, 
while she sucks the thumb of the other — and 
so she lies, meditating with open eyes, till at 
last she goes to sleep. She is never allowed to 
have the apron in public, so to-day her mamma 
was obliged to invent a little “ Maymie’s apron ” 

— a small square of flannel — to comfort her on 
the long railway journey. This being produced, 
though she was a little ashamed, and blushed in 
her pretty childish way, she turned her back on the 
gentlemen in the carriage and settled down in 
deep content, her eyes fixed on mamma’s face. 
Gradually they closed — and the lively little 
woman lay fast asleep, warm and heavy, in her 
mamma’s arms. 

There she might have slept till the journey’s 
end, but for those horrid gentlemen, who began 
to quarrel so fiercely about French and Prussians, 
and which had the right of it in this terrible war 

— (a question which you little folks even when 
you are great big folks fifty years hence may 
hardly be able to decide) — that they disturbed 
the poor child in her happy sleep, and at last she 
started up, looking round her with frightened 
eyes, and began to scream violently. She had 
been so good all the way, so little trouble to any 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


13 


body, that mamma could not help thinking it 
served the gentlemen right, and told them sev- 
erely that “ if gentlemen did differ, they need not 
do it so angrily as to waken a child.” At which 
they all looked rather ashamed, and were quiet 
for the rest of the journey. 

It did not last much longer ; and again the little 
girl had the fun of jumping out of a puff-puff 
and into a carriage. The bright day closed; it 
was already dusk, and pouring rain, and they had 
to drive a long way, stop at several places, and 
see several new people whom Little Sunshine had 
never seen before. She was getting tired and 
hungry; but still kept good and did not cry; and 
when at last she came to the cottage which her 
mamma had told her about, where lived an old 
gentleman and lady who had been very kind to 
mamma, and dear grandmamma too, for many 
years, and would be very kind to the little girl, 
Sunny ran in at once, as merry as possible. 

After a while mamma followed, and lo! there 
was Little Sunshine, quite at home already, sit- 
ting in the middle of the white sheepskin hearth- 
rug, having taken half her “ things ” off, chatter- 
ing in the most friendly manner, and asking to 
be lifted up to see “ a dear little baby and a 
mamma,” which was a portrait of the old lady’s 
eldest sister as an infant in her mother’s arms, 
about seventy years ago. 

And what do you think happened next? 


14 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Sunny actually sat up to supper, which she had 
never done in all her life before — supper by 
candle-light: a mouthful of fowl, and a good 
many mouthfuls of delicious cream, poured, with 
a tiny bit of jam in the middle of it, into her 
saucer. And she made a large piece of dry toast 
into “ fishes/’ and swam them in her mamma’s 
tea, and then fished them out with a teaspoon, 
and ate them up. Altogether it was a wonderful 
meal, and left her almost too wide awake to go 
to bed, if she had not had the delight of sleeping 
in her mamma’s room instead of a nursery, and 
being bathed, instead of in her own proper bath, 
in a washing-tub! 

This washing-tub was charming. She eyed it 
doubtfully, she walked around it, she peered over 
it; at last she slowly got into it. 

“ Come and see me in my bath ; come and see 
Sunny in her bath,” cried she, inviting all the 
family, half of whom accepted the invitation. 
Mamma heard such shouts of laughing, with her 
little girl’s laugh clearer than all, that she was 
obliged to go up stairs to see what was the mat- 
ter. There was Sunshine frolicking about and 
splashing like a large fish in the tub, the maids 
and mistresses standing round, exceedingly 
amused at their new plaything, the little “ water- 
baby.” 

But at last the day’s excitement was over, and 
Sunny lay in her white night-gown, cuddled up 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


15 


4ike a round ball in her mamma’s lap, sucking 
her Maymie’s apron, and listening to the adven- 
tures of Tommy Tinker. Tommy Tinker is a 
young gentleman about whom a story, “ a quite 
new story, which Sunny never heard before,” has 
to be told every night. Mamma had done this 
for two months, till Tommy, his donkey, his 
father, John Tinker, who went about the country 
crying “Pots and kettles to mend,” his school- 
fellow, J ack, and his playfellow, Mary, were 
familiar characters, and had gone through so 
much that mamma was often puzzled as to what 
should happen to them next; this night espe- 
cially, when she herself was rather tired, but for- 
tunately the little girl grew sleepy very soon. 

So she said her short prayers, ending with 
“ God make Sunny a good little girl ” (to which 
she sometimes deprecatingly adds, “but Sunny 
is a good girl ”), curled down in the beautiful 
large strange bed — such a change from her lit- 
tle crib at home — and was fast asleep in no time. 

Thus ended the first day of Little Sunshine’s 
Holiday. 


16 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


♦ 


CHAPTER II. 

N EXT morning Little Sunshine was awake 
very early, sitting upright in bed, and try- 
ing to poke open her mamma’s eyes; then 
she looked about her in the new room with the 
greatest curiosity. 

“ There’s my tub ! there’s Sunny’s tub ! I want 
to go into my tub again ! ” she suddenly cried 
with a shout of delight, and insisted on pattering 
over to it on her bare feet, and swimming all 
sorts of things in it — a comb, a brush, biscuits, 
the soap-dish and soap, and a large penny, which 
she had found. These kept her amused till she 
was ready to be dressed, after which she went 
independently down stairs, where her mamma 
found her, as before, sitting on the white rug, 
and conversing cheerfully with the old gentle- 
man and lady, and the rest of the family. 

After breakfast she was taken into the garden. 
It was a very nice garden, with lots of apple- 
trees in it, and many apples had fallen to the 
ground. Sunshine picked them up and brought 
them in her pinafore, to ask mamma if she might 
eat them — for she never eats any thing without 
saying, “ May I ? ” and when it is given to her 
she always says, “ Thank you.” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


17 


Then she went back into the garden again, and 
saw no end of curious things. Every body was 
so kind to her, and petted her as if there had 
never been a child in the house before, which cer- 
tainly there had not for a great many years. She 
and her mamma would willingly have staid ever 
so much longer in the dear little cottage, but 
there was another house in Scotland, where were 
waiting Sunshine’s two aunties; not real aunties, 
for she has none, nor uncles neither; but she is 
a child so well loved, that she has heaps of adopted 
aunts and uncles too. These — Auntie Weirie 
and Auntie Maggie — with other kind friends, 
expected her without fail that very night. 

So Sunny was obliged to say good-bye, and 
start again, which she did on her own two little 
feet, for the fly forgot to come; and her mamma, 
and her Lizzie, and two more kind people, had to 
make a rush of more than a mile, or they would 
have missed the train. If papa, or any body at 
home, had seen them — half walking, and half 
running — and carrying the little girl by turns, 
or making her run between them, till she said 
mournfully, “ Sunny can’t run — Sunny is so 
tired ! ” — how sorry they would have been ! 

And when at the station she lost her mamma, 
who was busy about luggage, poor Sunny’s trou- 
bles seemed great indeed. She screamed till 
mamma heard her ever so far off, and when she 
caught sight of her again, she clung round her 
2 


18 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


neck in the most frantic way. “ I thought you 
was lost; I thought you was lost.” 

(Sunny’s grammar is not perfect yet. She can 
not understand tenses ; she says “ brang ” instead 
of *' tf brought,” and once being told that this was 
not right, she altered it to “ I brung,” which, in- 
deed, had some sense, for do we not say “ I rang,” 
and “ I rung? ” Perhaps Little Sunshine will 
yet write a book on grammar — who knows?) 

Well, she parted from her friends, quite cheer- 
fully of course — she never cries after any body 
but her mamma and papa — and soon made ac- 
quaintance with her fellow-travellers, who this 
time were chiefly ladies. It being nearly one 
o’clock, two of them look a beautiful basket of 
lunch; sandwiches, and cakes, and grapes. Lit- 
tle Sunshine watched it with grave composure 
until she saw the grapes, which were very fine. 
Then she could not help whispering to her mam- 
ma very softly, “ Sunny likes grapes.” 

“ Hush ! ” said mamma, also in a whisper, 
“ They are not ours, so we can’t have them ” — 
an answer which always satisfies this little girl. 
She said no more. But perhaps tho young lady 
who was eating the grapes saw the silent, wist- 
ful eyes, for she picked off the most beautiful 
half of the bunch and handed it over. “ Thank 
you,” said Sunny, in the politest way. “ Look, 
mamma ! grapes ! — shall I give you one ? ” And 
the delight of eating them, and feeding mamma 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


19 


with them, “like a little bird,” altogether com- 
forted her for the troubles with which she began 
her journey. 

Then she grew conversational, and informed 
every body that Sunny was going to Scotland, 
to a place where she had never been before, and 
that she was to row in a boat and catch big sal- 
mon — which no doubt interested them much. 
She herself was so interested in every thing she 
saw, that it was impossible not to share her enjoy- 
ment. She sat or stood at the carriage window 
and watched the view. It was quite different 
from any thing she had been used to. Sunny 
lives in a very pretty but rather level country, 
full of woods and lanes, and hedges and fields; 
but she had never seen a hill or a river, or indeed 
(except the Thames) any sort of water bigger than 
a horse-pond. Mamma had sometimes shown her 
pictures of mountains and lakes, but doubted if 
the child had taken it in, and was therefore quite 
surprised when she called out, all of a sudden, 
“ There’s a mountain ! ” 

And a mountain it really was — one of those 
Westmoreland hills, bleak and bare, which grad- 
ually rise up before travellers’ eyes on the North 
journey, a foretaste of all the beautiful things 
that are coming. Mamma, delighted, held up 
her little girl to look at it — the first mountain 
Sunny ever saw — with its long, smooth slopes, 
and the sheep feeding on them, dotted here and 


20 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


there like white stones, or moving about like 
walking daisies. 

Little Sunshine was greatly charmed with the 
“ baa-lambs.” She had seen plenty this spring — 
white baa-lambs and black baa-lambs, and white 
baa-lambs with black faces — but never so many 
at a time. And they skipped about in such a 
lively way, and stood so funnily in steep places, 
with their four little legs all screwed up together, 
looking at the train as it passed, that she grew 
quite excited, and wanted to jump out and play 
with them. 

To quiet her, mamma told her a story about 
the mountains, how curious they looked in win- 
ter, all covered with snow; and how the lambs 
were sometimes lost in the snow, and the shep- 
herds went out to find them, and carried them 
home in their arms, and warmed them by the 
fireside and fed them, until they opened their 
eyes, and stretched their little frozen legs, and 
began to run about the floor. 

Little Sunshine listened, with her wide blue 
eyes fixed on the mountain, and then upon her 
mamma’s face, never saying a word, till at length 
she burst out quite breathless, for she does not 
yet know words enough to get out her thoughts, 
with — 

“ I want a little baa-lamb. No ” — she stop- 
ped and corrected herself — “I want two little 
baa-lambs. I would go and fetch them in out 


LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY. 


21 


of the snow, and carry them in my little arms, 
and lay them on Maymie’s apron by my nursery 
fire, and warm them, and make them quite well 
again. And the two dear little baa-lambs would 
play about together — so pretty.” 

It was a long speech — the longest she had 
ever made all at once — and the little girl’s eyes 
sparkled and her cheeks grew hot, with the dif- 
ficulty she had in getting it out, so that mamma 
might understand. But mamma understands a 
good deal. Only it was less easy to explain to 
Sunny that she could neither have a lamb to play 
with, nor go out on the mountain to fetch it. 
However, mamma promised that if ever a little 
lamb were lost in the snow near her own house, 
and her gardener were to find it, he should be al- 
lowed to bring it in, and Sunny should make it 
warm by the fire and he kind to it, until it was 
quite well again. 

But still the child went back now and then to 
the matter in a melancholy voice. “ I don’t like 
a dear little baa-lamb to be lost in the snow. I 
want a little baa-lamb in my nursery. I would 
cuddle it and take such care of it ” (for the strong- 
est instinct of this little woman is to “ take care ” 
of people). “ Mamma, some day may Sunny have 
a little baa-lamb to take care of? ” 

Mamma promised; for she knew well that if 
Sunny grows up to be a woman, with the same 
instinct of protection that she has now, God may 


22 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


send her many of His forlorn “ lambs” to take 
care of. 

Presently the baa-lambs were forgotten in a 
new sight — a stream; a real, flowing, tumbling 
stream — which ran alongside of the railway for 
ever so far. It jumped over rocks, and made it- 
self into white foamy whirlpools, it looked so very 
much alive; and so unlike any water that Sunny 
had ever seen before, that she was quite aston- 
ished. 

“ What’s that? — what’s that?” she kept say- 
ing ; and at last, struck with a sudden idea : “ Is 
it Scotland?” 

What her notion of Scotland was — whether 
a place, or a person, or a thing — her mamma 
could not make out, but the name was firmly 
fixed in her mind, and she recurred to it con- 
stantly. All the long weary journey, lasting till 
long after her proper bed-time, she never cried or 
fretted, or worried any body, but amused herself 
without ceasing at what she saw. She ate her 
dinner merrily — “ such a funny dinner — no 
plates, no forks, no table-cloth ” — and her tea — 
milk drank out of a horn cup, instead of “ great- 
grandpapa’s mug, which he had when he was a 
little boy ” — which she used when at home. 

As the day closed in, she grew tired of looking 
out of the window, snuggled up in her mamma’s 
arms, and, turning her back upon the people in 
the carriage, whispered, blushing very much : 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


23 


“ Maymie’s apron — Sunny wants the little May- 
ra ie’s apron ; 99 and lay sucking it meditatively, till 
she dropped asleep. 

She was asleep when the train reached Scot- 
land. She did not see the stars coining out over 
the Grampian Hills, nor the beautiful tires near 
Gartsherrie — that ring of iron furnaces, blaz- 
ing fiercely into the night — which are such a 
wonderful sight to behold. And she only woke 
up in time to have her hat and cloak put on, and 
be told that she was really in Scotland, and would 
see her aunties in a minute more. And, sure 
enough, in the midst of the bustle and confusion, 
there was Auntie Weirie’s bright face at the car- 
riage-door, with her arms stretched out to receive 
the sleepy little traveller. 

Four or five miles were yet to be accomplished, 
but it was in a comfortable carriage, dark and 
quiet. The little girl’s tongue was altogether 
silent — but she was not asleep, for all of a sud- 
den she burst out, as if she had been thinking 
over the matter for a long time : “ Mamma, you 
forgot the tickets.” 

Every body laughed; and mamma explained 
to her most accurate little daughter that she had 
given up the tickets while Sunny was asleep. 
Auntie Weirie foreboded merrily how Sunny 
would “ keep mamma in order ” by-and-by. 

Very sleepy and tired the poor child was; but, 
except one entreaty for “ a little drop of milk 


24 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


which somehow was got at — she made no com- 
plaint, and never once cried, till the carriage 
stopped at the house-door. 

Oh, such a door, and such a house! Quite a 
fairy palace! And there, standing waiting, was 
a pretty lady — not unlike a fairy lady — who 
took Little Sunshine in her arms and carried her 
off, unresisting, to a beautiful drawing-room, 
where, in the great tall mirrors, she could see her- 
self everywhere at full length. 

What a funny figure she was, trotting about 
and examining every thing, as she always does 
on entering a strange room! Her little water- 
proof cloak made her look as broad as she was 
long; and when she tossed off her hat, her curls 
tumbled about in disorder; and her face and 
hands were so dirty, that mamma was quite 
ashamed. But nobody minded it, and every body 
welcomed her, and the pretty lady carried her off 
again up stairs into the most charming extempore 
nursery, next to her mamma’s room, where she 
could run in and out, and be as happy as a queen. 

She was as happy as a queen, when she woke 
up next morning to all the wonders of the house. 
First there was a poll-parrot, who could say not 
only “ Pretty Poll ! ” but a great many other 
words: could bark like a dog, grunt like a pig, 
and do all sorts of wonderful things. He lived 
chiefly in the butler’s pantry, but was brought 
out on occasion for the amusement of visitors. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


25 


Sunny was taken to see him directly; and there 
she stood, watching him intently; laughing some- 
times in her sudden, ecstatic way, with her head 
thrown hack, and her little nose all crumpled up; 
till, being only a button of a nose at best, it nearly 
disappeared altogether. 

And then, in the breakfast-room, there were 
two dogs — Jack, a young rough Scotch terrier, 
and Bob, a smooth terrier, very ugly and old. 
Now Sunny’s dog at home, Kose, who was a puppy 
when she was a baby, so that the two were brought 
up together, is the gentlest creature imaginable. 
She will let Sunny roll over her, and pull her 
paws and tail, and even put her little fat hand 
into her mouth, without growling or biting. But 
these strange dogs were not used to children. 
Sunny tried to make friends with them, as she 
tries to do with every live creature she sees; even 
crying, one day, because she could not manage to 
kiss a spider, it ran away so fast. But Bob and 
Jack did not understand her affection at all. 
When she stroked and patted them, and vainly 
tried to carry them in her arms, by the legs, head, 
tail, or any where she could catch hold of, they 
escaped away, scampering off as fast as they could. 
The little girl looked after them with mournful 
eyes; it was hard to see them frolicking about, 
and not taking the least notice of her. 

But very soon somebody much better than a 
little dog began to notice her — a kind boy named 


26 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Franky, who, though he was a schoolboy, home 
for the holidays, did not think it in the least be- 
neath his dignity to be good to a little girl. She 
sat beside him at prayers, during which time she 
watched him carefully, and evidently made up 
her mind that he was a nice person, and one to 
be played with. So when he began playing with 
her, she responded eagerly, and they were soon 
the best of friends. 

Presently Franky had to leave her and go with 
his big brother down to the bottom of a coal mine, 
about which he had told such wonderful stories, 
that Little Sunshine, had she been bigger, would 
certainly have liked to go too. “ You jump into 
a basket, and are let down, down, several hundred 
feet, till you touch the bottom, and then you find 
a new world under-ground : long passages, so nar- 
row that you can not stand upright, and loftier 
rooms between, and men working — as black as 
the coal themselves — with lights in their caps. 
Also horses, dragging trucks full of coal — horses 
that have never seen the daylight since they were 
taken down the pit, perhaps seven or ten years 
ago, and will never see daylight again, as long as 
they live. Yet they live happily, are kindly 
treated, and have comfortable stables, all in the 
dark of the coal mine — and no doubt are quite 
as content as the horses that work in the outside 
world, high above their heads.” 

Sunshine heard all this. I can not say that 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


27 


she understood it, being such a very little girl, 
you know; hut whenever Franky opened his lips 
she watched him with intense admiration, and 
when he was gone she looked quite sad. How- 
ever, she soon found another friend in the pretty 
lady, Franky’s mamma. Her own mamma was 
obliged to go out directly after breakfast, so this 
other mamma took Sunny under her especial pro- 
tection, and showed her all about the house. 
First, they visited the parrot, who went through 
all his performances over again. Then they pro- 
ceeded up stairs to what used to be the nursery, 
only the little girls had grown into big girls, and 
were now far away at school. But their mamma 
showed Sunny their old toy-cupboard, where were 
arranged, in beautiful order, playthings so lovely 
that it was utterly impossible such very tiny fin- 
gers could safely be trusted with them. 

So Little Sunshine was obliged to practise the 
lesson she has learnt with her mamma’s china 
cabinet at home — “ Look and not touch.” Ever 
since she was a baby, Wedgwood ware, Sevres and 
Dresden china, all sorts of delicate and precious 
things, have been left within her reach on open 
shelves; but she was taught from the first that 
she must not touch them, and she never does. 
“The things that Sunny may play with,” such 
as a small plaster hand, a bronze angel, and a 
large agate seal, she takes carefully out from among 
the rest, and is content with them — just as con- 


28 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


tent as she was with one particular doll which the 
pretty lady chose out from among these countless 
treasures and gave to her to play with. 

Now Sunny has had a good many dolls — 
wooden dolls, gutta-percha dolls, dolls made of 
linen with faces of wax — hut none of them had 
ever lasted, entire, for more than twenty-four 
hours. They always met with some misfortune 
or other — lost a leg or an arm; their heads 
dropped off, and the sawdust ran out of their bod- 
ies, leaving them mere empty bits of calico, not 
dolls at all. The wrecks she had left behind her 
at home — bodies without heads, heads without 
bodies, arms and legs sewed upon bodies that did 
not belong to them, or strewed about separately 
in all directions — would have been melancholy 
to think of, only that she loved them quite as 
well in that dismembered condition as when they 
were new. 

But this was a dolly — such a dolly as Sunny 
had never had before. Perfectly whole, with a 
pretty waxen face, a nose, and two eyes; also hair, 
real hair that could be combed. This she at once 
proceeded to do with her mamma’s comb, just 
as her Lizzie did her own hair every morning, 
until the comb became full of long flaxen hairs 
— certainly not mamma’s — and there grew a 
large bald place on the top of dolly’s head, which 
Sunny did not understand at all. Thereupon her 
Lizzie came to the rescue, and proposed tying up 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


29 


the poor remnant of curls with a blue ribbon, and 
dressing dolly, whose clothes took off and on beau- 
tifully, in her out-of-doors dress, so that Sun- 
shine might take her a walk in the garden. 

Lizzie is a very ingenious person in mending 
and dressing dollies, and has also the gift of un- 
limited patience with her charge; so the toilet 
went off very well, and soon both Sunshine and 
her doll were ready to go out with Franky’s mam- 
ma and see the cows, pigs, sheep, chickens, and 
all the wonders of the outside establishment, 
which was a very large one. 

Indeed the pretty lady showed her so many 
curious things, and played with her so much, that 
when, just before dark, her own mamma came 
hack, and saw a little roly-poly figure, hugging 
a large doll, running as fast as ever it could along 
the gravel -walk to meet her — she felt convinced 
that the first day in Scotland had been a most de- 
lightful one, altogether perfect in its way. So 
much so that, when put to bed, Sunny again for- 
got Tommy Tinker. She was chattering so much 
of all she had seen, that it was not until the last 
minute that she remembered to ask for a “ story.” 

There was no story in mamma’s head to-night. 
Instead, she told something really true, which 
had happened in the street near the house where 
she had spent the day : — 

A poor little boy, just come out of school, was 
standing on the top of the school-door steps, with 


30 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


his books in his hand. Suddenly a horse that 
was passing took fright, rushed up the steps, and 
knocked the hoy down. He fell several feet, and 
a huge stone fell after, just on the top of him — 
and — and — 

Mamma stopped. She could not tell any more 
of the pitiful story. Her child’s eyes were fixed 
upon her face, which Little Sunny reads some- 
times as plain as any hook. 

“ Mamma, was the poor little hoy hurt ? ” 

“ Yes, my darling.” 

“Very much hurt?” 

“Very much, indeed.” 

Sunny sat upright, and began speaking loud 
and fast, in her impetuous, broken way. 

“I want to go and see that poor little boy. I 
will bring him to my nursery and put him in my 
little bed, and take care of him. Then he will 
get quite well.” 

And she looked much disappointed when her 
mamma explained that this was not necessary; 
somebody having already carried the little boy 
home to his mamma. 

“ Then his mamma will cuddle him, and kiss 
the sore place, and he will be quite well soon. Is 
he quite well? ” 

“ Yes,” answered Sunny’s mamma, after a min- 
ute’s thought — “yes, he is quite well now; noth- 
ing will ever hurt him any more.” 

Sunny was perfectly satisfied. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


31 


But her mamma, when she kissed the little 
curly head, and laid it down on its safe pillow, 
thought of that other mother — mourning over 
a dead child — thoughts which Little Sunshine 
could not understand, nor was there any need she 
should. She may, some day, when she has a lit- 
tle girl of her own. 


32 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER III. 

L ITTLE SUNSHINE had never yet beheld 
the sea. That wonderful delight, a sea- 
beach, with little waves running in and 
running back again, playing at bo-peep among 
shingle and rocks, or a long smooth sandy shore, 
where you may pick up shells and sea-weed and 
pebbles, and all sorts of curious things, and build 
castles and dig moats, filled with real water — 
all this was unknown to the little girl. So her 
mamma, going to spend a day with a dear old 
friend, who lived at a lovely sea-side house, 
thought she would take the child with her. Also 
“the big child ; 99 as her Sunny sometimes called 
Lizzie, who enjoyed going about and seeing new 
places as much as the little child. 

They started directly after breakfast one morn- 
ing, leaving behind them the parrot, the dogs, 
and every thing except Franky, who escorted 
them in the carriage through four or five miles 
of ugly town streets, where all the little children 
who ran about (and there seemed no end of them) 
had very rough bare heads, and very dirty bare 
feet. 

Sunny was greatly struck by them. 

“ Look, mamma, that little boy has got no 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


33 


shoes and stockings on! Shall Sunny take off 
hers and give them to that poor little boy? ” 

And she was proceeding to unbutton her*hoes, 
when her mamma explained that — the hoy be- 
ing quite a big boy — Sunny’s shoes would cer- 
tainly not tit him, and if they did, he would prob- 
ably not put them on; since in Scotland little 
boys and girls often go barefooted, and like it. 
Had not papa once taken off Sunny’s shoes and 
stockings, and let her run about upon the soft 
warm grass of the lawn, calling her “ his little 
Scotch girl?” 

Sunny accepted the reasoning, but still looked 
perplexed at the bare feet. They were “ so 
dirty,” and she can not bear to have the least 
speck of dirt on feet or hands or clothes, or any- 
where about her. Her Auntie Weirie, on whose 
lap she sat, and of whom she had taken entire pos- 
session — children always do — was very much 
amused. 

She put them safely into the train, which soon 
started — on a journey which mamma knew well, 
but which seemed altogether fresh when seen 
through her child’s eyes. Such wonderful things 
for Sunshine to look at! Mountains — she thor- 
oughly understood mountains now; and a broad 
river, gradually growing broader still, until it 
was almost sea. Ships too — some with sails, 
and some with chimneys smoking; “a puff-puff 
on the water,” Sunny called them. Every now 
3 


34 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


and then there was a little “ puff-puff ” dragging 
a big ship after it, and going so fast, fast — the 
big ^lip looking as proud as if it were sailing 
along all by its own self, and the little one puffing 
and blowing as busily as possible. Sunny watched 
them with much curiosity, and then started a 
brilliant idea. 

“ That’s a papa-boat and that’s a baby-boat, and 
the baby-boat pulls the papa-boat along! So 
funny ! ” 

And she crumpled up her little face, and, toss- 
ing up her head, laughed her quite indescribable 
laugh, which makes every body else laugh too. 

There were various other curious things, to be 
seen on the river, especially some things which 
mamma told her were called “ buoys.” These 
of course she took to mean little “boys,” and 
looked puzzled, until mamma described them as 
“big red thimbles,” which she understood, and 
noticed each one with great interest ever after- 
wards. 

But it would be vain to tell all the things she 
saw, and all the delight she took in them. Occa- 
sionally her little face grew quite grave, such dif- 
ficulty had she in understanding the wonders that 
increased more and more. And when at last the 
journey was ended and the train stopped, the lit- 
tle girl was rather troubled, and would not let 
go of her mamma for a single minute. 

For the lovely autumn weather of yesterday 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


35 


had changed into an equinoctial gale. Inland, 
one did not so much perceive it, but at the sea- 
side it was terrible. People living on thair'coast 
will long remember this particular day as one of 
the wildest of the season, or for several seasons. 
The wind blew, and the sea roared, as even, 
mamma, who knew the place well, had seldom 
heard. Instead of tiny wavelets running after 
Sunny’s little feet, as had been promised her, 
there were huge “ white horses ” rising and fall- 
ing in the middle of the river; while along the 
shore the waves kept pouring in, and dashing 
themselves in and out of the rocks, with force 
enough to knock any poor little girl down. Sunny 
could not go near them, and the wind was so high 
that her hat had to be tied on; and her cloak, a 
cape of violet wool, which Auntie Weirie had 
rushed to fetch at the last minute, in case of rain, 
was the greatest possible blessing. Still, fasten 
it as Lizzie would, the wind blew it loose again, 
and tossed her curls all over her face in a furious 
fashion, which the little girl could not understand 
at all. 

“ Sunny don’t like it,” said she, pitifully ; and, 
forgetful of all the promised delights — shells, 
and pebbles, and castles of sand — took refuge 
gladly in-doors. 

However, this little girl is of such a happy na- 
ture in herself that she quickly grows happy any- 
where, And the house she came to was such a 


36 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


beautiful house, with a conservatory full of flow- 
ers — she is so fond of flowers — and a large hall 
to play in besides. Her merry voice was soon 
heard in all directions, rather to her mamma’s 
distress, as the dear mistress of the house was not 
well. But Sunny comprehends that she must 
always speak in a whisper when people are not 
well ; so she was presently quieted down, and came 
into the dining-room and ate her dinner by mam- 
ma’s side, as good as gold. She has always dined 
with mamma ever since she could sit up in a chair, 
so she behaves quite properly — almost like a 
grown-up person. When she and mamma are 
alone, they converse all dinner-time; but when 
there are other people present, she is told that 
“ little girls must be seen and not heard ” — a rule 
which she observes as far as she can. Hot alto- 
gether, I am afraid, for she is very fond of talk- 
ing. 

Still she was good, upon the whole, and en- 
joyed herself much, until she had her things put 
on again, ready to start once more, in a kind lady’s 
carriage which was ordered to drive slowly along 
the shore, that Sunny might see as much as pos- 
sible, without being exposed to the wind and 
spray. She was much interested, and a little 
awed. She ceased to chatter, and sat looking out 
of the carriage window on the curve of shore, 
over which the tide came pouring in long rollers, 
and sweeping back again in wide sheets of water 
mixed with white foam. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


37 


“Does Sunny like the waves? ” asked the kind 
lady, who has a sweet way with children, and is 
very good to them, though she has none of her 
own. 

.“Yes, Sunny likes them,” said the little girl, 
after a pause, as if she were trying to make up 
her mind. “ ’Posing (supposing) Sunny were to 
go and swim upon them ? If — if mamma would 
come too?” 

“ But wouldn’t Sunny be afraid? ” 

“ No ” — very decidedly this time. “ Sunny 
would be quite safe if mamma came too.” 

The lady smiled at mamma; who listened, 
scarcely smiling, and did not say a word. 

It was a terrible day. The boats, and even big 
ships, were tossing about like cockle-sheds on the 
gray stormy sea; and the mountains, hiding them- 
selves in mist, at last altogether disappeared. 
Then the rain began to fall in sheets, as it often 
does fall hereabouts — soaking, blinding rain. 
At the station it was hardly possible to keep one’s 
footing: the little girl, if she had not been in her 
Lizzie’s arms, would certainly have been blown 
down before she got into the railway carriage. 

Once there — safely sheltered from the storm 
— she did not mind it in the least. She jumped 
about, and played endless tricks, to the great 
amusement of -two ladies — evidently a mamma 
and a grandmamma — who compared her with 
their own little people, and were very kind to 


38 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


her — as indeed every body is when she travels. 
Still, even they might have got tired out, if 
Sunny had not fortunately grown tired herself, 
and began to yawn in the midst of her fun in a 
droll way. 

Then mamma slyly produced out of her pocket 
the child’s best travelling companion — the little 
Maymie’s apron. Sunny seized it with a scream 
of delight, cuddled down, sucking it, in her mam- 
ma’s arms, and in three minutes was sound asleep. 
Nor did she once wake up till the train stopped, 
and Lizzie carried her, so muffled up that nobody 
could have told whether it was a little girl or a 
brown paper parcel, to the carriage, where faith- 
ful Franky waited for her, and had waited ever 
so long. 

Fun and Franky always came together. Sunny 
shook herself wide awake at once — fresh as a 
rose, and lively as a kitten. Oh the games that 
began, and lasted all the four miles that the car- 
riage drove through the pelting rain! Never was 
a big boy kinder to a little girl; so patient, so 
considerate; letting her do any thing she liked 
with him; never cross, and never rough — in short, 
a thorough gentleman, as all boys should be to 
all girls, and all men to all women, whether old 
or young. And when home was reached, the fire, 
like the welcome, was so warm and bright that 
Sunny seemed to have lost all memory of her day 
at the sea-side — the stormy waves, the dreary 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


39 


shore, the wild wind, and pouring min. She was 
such a contented little girl that she never heeded 
the weather outside. But her mamma did a lit- 
tle, and thought of sailors at sea, and soldiers 
fighting abroad, and many other things. 

The happy visit was now drawing to a close. 
Perhaps as well, lest, as some people foretold, 
Sunny might get “ quite spoiled ” — if love spoils 
any body, which I do not believe. Certainly this 
child’s felicities were endless. Every body 
played with her; every body was kind to her. 
Franky and Franky’s mamma, her two aunties, 
the parrot, the dogs Bob and Jack, were her com- 
panions by turns. There was .another dog, Wal- 
lace by name: but she did not play with him, as 
he was an older and graver and bigger animal — 
much bigger than herself indeed. She once 
faintly suggested riding him, “ as if he was a 
pony,” but the idea was not caught at, and fell to 
the ground, as, doubtless, Sunny would have done 
immediately, had she carried out her wish. 

Wallace, though big, was the gentlest dog im- 
aginable. He was a black retriever, belonging to 
Franky’s elder brother, a grown-up young gentle- 
man; and his devotion to his master was entire. 
The rest of the family he just condescended to 
notice — but Mr. John he followed everywhere 
with a quiet persistency — the more touching be- 
cause poor Wallace was nearly blind. He had 
lost the sight of one eye by an accident, and could 


40 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


see out of the other very little. They knew how 
little, by the near chance he had often had of be- 
ing run over by other carriages in following theirs ; 
so that now Franky’s mamma never ventured to 
take him out with her at all. He was kept away 
from streets, but allowed to run up and down in 
the country, where his wonderful sense of smell 
preserved him from any great danger. 

This sense of smell, common to all retrievers, 
seemed to have been doubled by Wallace’s blind- 
ness. He could track his master for miles and 
miles, and find an}^ thing that his master had 
touched. Once, just to try him, Mr. John showed 
him a halfpenny, and then hid it under a tuft of 
grass, and walked on across country for half a 
mile or more. Of course the dog could not see 
where he hid it, and had been galloping about in 
all directions ever since ; yet when his master said, 
“ Wallace, fetch that halfpenny,” showing him 
another one, Wallace instantly turned back, smell- 
ing cautiously about for twenty yards or so; then, 
having caught the right scent, bounding on faster 
and faster, till out of sight. In half an hour more 
he came back, and ran direct to his master with 
the halfpenny in his mouth. 

Since, Mr. John had sent the dog for his stick, 
his cap, or his handkerchief, often considerable 
distances; but Wallace always brought the thing 
safe back, whatever it was, and laid it at his mas- 
ter’s feet. Mr. John was very proud of Wallace, 
and very fond of him. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


41 


Sunny was not old enough to understand these 
clevernesses of the creature, but she fully appre- 
ciated one trick of his. He would hold a bit of 
biscuit or sugar on his nose, quite steady, for sev- 
eral minutes, while his master said “ Trust,” not 
attempting to eat it; but when Mr. John said 
“ Paid for ! 99 Wallace gobbled it up at once. This 
he did several times, to Sunshine’s great delight, 
but always with a sort of hesitation, as if he con- 
sidered it a little below the dignity of such a very 
superior animal. And the minute they were gone 
he would march away with his slow blind step, 
following his beloved master. 

But all pleasures come to an end, and so did 
these of Little Sunshine’s. First, Franky went 
off to school, and she missed him out of the house 
very much. Then one day, instead of the regu- 
lar morning amusements, she had to be dressed 
quickly, to eat her breakfast twice as fast as usual, 
and have her “ things ” put on all in a hurry “ to 
go by the puff-puif.” Her only consolation was 
that Dolly should have her things put on too — 
poor Dolly! who, from constant combing, was 
growing balder and balder every day, and whose 
clothes were slowly disappearing, so that it re- 
quired all Lizzie’s ingenuity to dress her decently 
for the journey. 

This done, Sunny took her in her arms, and 
became so absorbed in her as hardly to notice the 
affectionate adieux of her kind friends, some of 


42 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


whom went with her to the station : so she scarcely 
understood that it was good-bye. And besides, 
it is only elder folks who understand good-byes, 
not little people. All the better, too. 

Sunshine was delighted to be in a puff-puff 
again, and to see more mountains. She watched 
them till she was tired, and then went comfort- 
ably to sleep, having first made Dolly comfortable 
too, lying as snug in her arms as she did in her 
mamma’s. But she and Dolly woke up at the 
journey’s end; when, indeed, Sunny became so 
energetic and lively, that seeing her mamma and 
her Lizzie carrying each a bag, she insisted on car- 
rying something too. Seizing upon a large lunch- 
eon basket which the pretty lady had filled with 
no end of good things, she actually lifted it, and 
bore it, tottering under its weight, for several 
yards. 

“ See, mamma, Sunny can carry it,” said she 
in triumph, and her mamma never hinders the 
little girl from doing every thing she can do; 
wishing to make her a useful and helpful woman, 
who will never ask any body else to do for her 
what she can do for herself. 

The place they were going to was quite differ- 
ent from that they had left. It was only lodg- 
ings — in a house on the top of a hill — but they 
were nice lodgings, and it was a bright breezy 
hill, sloping down to a beautiful glen, through 
which ran an equally beautiful stream. Thence, 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


43 


the country sloped up again, through woods and 
pasture-lands, to a dim range of mountains, far 
in the horizon. A very pretty place outside, and 
not had inside, only the little girl's “nursery” 
was not so large and cheerful as the one she was 
used to, and she missed the full house and the 
merry companions. However, being told that 
papa was coming to-morrow, she brightened up, 
and informed every body, whether interested or 
not in the fact, that “ Sunny was going to see 
papa jump out of a puff-puff, to-morrow.” “ To- 
morrow ” being still to her a very indefinite thing; 
hut “papa jumping out of a puff-puff” has long 
been one of the great features of her existence. 

Still, to-day she would have been rather dull, 
if when she went out into the garden there had 
not come timidly forward, to look at her, a lit- 
tle girl, whose name mamma inquired, and found 
that it was Nelly. 

Here a word or two ought to be said about 
Nelly, for she turned out the greatest comfort to 
solitary little Sunny, in this strange place. Nelly 
was not exactly “ a young lady ; ” indeed at first 
she hung hack in a sweet shy way, as doubtful 
whether Sunny's mamma would allow the child 
to play with her. But Nelly was such a good lit- 
tle girl, so well brought-up and sensible, though 
only ten years old, that a princess might have had 
her for a playfellow without any disadvantage. 
And as soon as mamma felt sure that Sunny would 


44 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


learn nothing bad from her — which is the only 
real objection to playfellows — she allowed the 
children to be together as much as ever they liked. 

Nelly called Sunshine “ a bonnie wee lassie ” 
— words which, not understanding wdiat they 
meant, had already offended her several times 
since she came to Scotland. 

“ I’m not a bonnie wee lassie — I’m Sunny ; 
mamma’s little Sunny, I am ! ” cried she, almost 
in tears. But this was the only annoyance that 
Nellie ever gave her. 

Very soon the two children were sitting to- 
gether in a most charming play-place — some 
tumble-down, moss-grown stone steps leading 
down to the garden. From thence you could see 
the country for miles, and watch the railway 
trains, winding along like big serpents, with long 
feathers of steam and smoke streaming from their 
heads in the daylight, and great red fiery eyes 
gleaming through the dark. 

Nelly had several stories to tell about them — 
how once a train caught fire, and blazed up — 
they saw the blaze from these steps — and very 
dreadful it was to look at; also, she wanted to 
know if Sunny had seen the river below; such a 
beautiful little river, only sometimes people were 
drowned in it — two young ladies who were bath- 
ing, and also a schoolmaster, who had fallen into 
a deep hole, which was now called the Dominie’s 
Hole. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


45 


Nelly spoke broad Scotch, but her words were 
well chosen, and her manner very simple and gen- 
tle and sweet. She had evidently been carefully 
educated, as almost all Scotch children are. She 
went to school, she said, every morning, so that 
she could only play with Sunny of afternoons ; but 
to-morrow afternoon, if the lady allowed — there 
was still that pretty polite hesitation at any thing 
that looked like intrusiveness — she would take 
Sunny and her Lizzie a walk, and show them all 
that was to be seen. 

Sunny’s mamma not only allowed this — but 
was glad of it. Little Nelly seemed a rather grave 
and lonely child. She had no- brothers and sis- 
ters, she said, but lived with her aunts, who were 
evidently careful over her. She was a useful lit- 
tle body; went many a message to the village, and 
did various things about the house, as a girl of 
ten can often do ; but she was always neatly 
dressed, her hands and face quite clean, and her 
pretty brown hair, the chief prettiness she had, 
well combed and brushed. And, above all, she 
never said a rude or ugly word. 

It was curious to see how Little Sunshine, who, 
though not shy or repellent, is never affectionate 
to strangers, and always declines caresses, saying 
“ she only kisses papa and mamma; ” accepted 
Nelly’s kiss almost immediately, and allowed her 
to make friends at once. Nay, when bed-time 
arrived, she even invited her to “come and see 


46 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Sunny in her bath,” a compliment she only pays 
occasionally to her chief favorites. Soon the two 
solitary children were frolicking together, and the 
gloomy little nursery — made up extempore out 
of a hack bedroom — ringing with their laughter. 

At last, fairly tired with her day’s doings, 
Sunny condescended to go to sleep. Her mamma 
sat up for an hour or two longer, writing letters, 
and listening to the child’s soft breathing through 
the open door, to the equally soft sough of the 
wind outside, and the faint murmur of the stream, 
deep below in the glen. Then she also went to 
rest. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


47 


CHAPTER IV. 

N ELLY turned out more and more of an ac- 
quisition every day. Pretty as this new 
place was, Little Sunshine was not quite so 
happy as the week before. She had not so many 
things to amuse her out-of-doors ; and in-doors she 
was kept more to her nursery than she approved 
of or was accustomed to, being in her own home 
mamma’s little friend and companion all day long. 
Now mamma was often too busy to attend to her, 
and had to slip away and hide out of sight; for 
whenever Sunny caught sight of her, the wail of 
“ Mamma, mamma, I want you ! ” was really sad 
to hear. 

Besides, she had another tribulation. In the 
nearest house, a short distance down the lane, 
lived six children whom she knew and was fond 
of, and had come to Scotland on purpose to play 
with. But alas! one of them caught the measles; 
and, Little Sunshine never having had measles, 
or any thing — in fact, never having had a day’s 
illness or taken a dose of physic in her life — the 
elders decided that it was best to keep the little 
folks apart. Mamma tried hard not to let Sunny 
find out that her dear playfellows of old lived so 


48 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


near; but one da}' these sharp little ears caught 
their names, and from that time she was always 
wanting to go and play with them, and especially 
with their “ little baby.” 

“ I want to see that little baby, mamma ; may 
Sunny go and cuddle the dear little baby? ” 

But it was the baby which had the measles, and 
some of the rest were not safe. So there was 
nothing for it but to give orders to each house- 
hold that when they saw one another they were 
to run away at once; which they most honorably 
did. Still it was hard for Sunny to see her little 
friends — whom she recognized at once, though 
they had not met for eight months — galloping 
about, as merry as possible, playing at “ ponies,” 
and all sorts of things, while she was kept close 
to her Lizzie’s side and not allowed to go near 
them. 

Thus, but for kind little Nelly, the child would 
have been dull — at least, as dull as such a sun- 
shiny child could well be — which was not saying 
much. If she grows up with her present capacity 
for enjoying herself, little Sunny will be a bless- 
ing wherever she goes : since happy-minded people 
always make others happy. Still, Nelly was wel- 
come company, especially of afternoons. 

The days passed on very much alike. Before 
breakfast, Sunny always went a walk with her 
mamma, holding hands, and talking like two 
grown-up persons — about the baa-lambs, and 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


49 


calves, and cows, which they met on their way 
along the hill-side. It was a beautiful hill-side, 
and every thing looked so peaceful in the early 
morning. They seldom met any body; except 
once, when they were spoken to by a funny-look- 
ing man, who greatly offended Sunny by asking 
if she were a hoy or girl, but added, “ It’s a fine 
bairn, anyhow ! ” Then he went on to say how 
he had just come “ frae putting John M‘Ewen in 
his coffin, ye ken; Fm gaun to Glasgow, hut Fll 
be back here o ? Saturday. Ay, ay, I ? ll be back 
o’ Saturday ; ” as if the assurance must be the 
greatest satisfaction to Sunny and her mamma. 
Mamma thought he must have been drunk; but 
no, he was only foolish — a poor half-witted fel- 
low, whom all the neighborhood knew, and were 
good to. He had some queer points. Among the 
rest, a most astonishing memory. He would go 
to church, and then repeat the sermon, or long 
bits of it, off by heart, to the first person he met. 
Though silly, he was quite capable of taking care 
of himself, and never harmed any body. Every 
body, Nelly said, was kind to “ daft John.” Still, 
Sunny did not fancy him; and when she came 
home she told her papa a long story about “ that 
ugly man ! ” 

She had great games with her papa now and 
then, and was very happy whenever she could get 
hold of him. But her great companion was Nelly. 
From the minute Nelly came out of school till 
4 


50 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


seven o’clock — Sunny’s bed-time — they were in- 
separable ; and the way the big girl devoted herself 
to the little one, the patience with which she sub- 
mitted to all her vagaries, and allowed herself to 
be tyrannized over — never once failing in good- 
temper and pleasantness — was quite pretty to 
see. They played in the garden together; they 
went walks; they gathered blackberries, made 
them into jam in a little saucer by the fire, and 
then ate them up. With a wooden spade, and a 
“ luggie ” to fill with earth, they used to go up 
the hill-side, or down to the glen, sometimes dis- 
appearing for so long that mamma was rather un- 
happy in her mind, only Nelly was such a cautious 
little person, that whenever she went she was sure 
to bring her two charges home in safety. 

One day, Nelly, not being attainable, mamma 
went with the “ big child ” and the little one to 
the Dominie’s Hole. 

It was a real long walk, especially for such tiny 
feet, that eighteen months ago could barely toddle 
alone: all across the field of the baa-lambs, which 
always interested Sunny so much that it was diffi- 
cult to get her past them ; she wanted to play with 
them and “ cuddle ” them ; and was much sur- 
prised when they invariably ran away. How- 
ever, she was to-day a little consoled by mamma’s 
holding her upon the top of the stone dike at the 
end of the field, to watch “the water running” 
between the trees of the glen. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


51 


In Scotland water runs as I think it never does 
in England — so loudly and merrily, so fast and 
bright. Even when it is brown water — as when 
coming over peat it often is — there is a beauty 
about it beyond all quiet Southern streams. 
Here, however, it was not colored, but clear as 
crystal in every channel of the little river, and 
it was divided into tiny channels by big stones, 
and shallow, pebbly water-courses, and overhang- 
ing rocks covered with ferns, and heather, and 
mosses. Beneath these were generally round 
pools, where the river settled dark and still, though 
so clear that you could easily see to the bottom, 
which looked only two or three feet deep, when 
perhaps it was twelve or fifteen. 

The Dominie’s Hole was one of these. You 
descended to it by a winding path through the 
glen, and then came suddenly out upon a shel- 
tered nook surrounded by rocks, over which the 
honeysuckles crept, and the birk or mountain ash 
grew out of every possible cranny. Down one of 
these rocks the pent-up stream poured in a noisy 
little waterfall, forming below a deep bathing- 
pool, cut in the granite — I think it was granite 
— like a basin, with smooth sides and edges. Into 
this pool, many years ago, the poor young “ Domi- 
nie,” or school-master, had dived, and striking 
his head against the bottom, had been stunned 
and drowned. He was found floating dead, in 
the lonely little pool, which ever after bore his 
name. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


A rather melancholy place, and the damp, sun- 
less chill of it made it still more gloomy, pretty 
as it was. Little Sunshine, who can not bear liv- 
ing in shadow, shivered involuntarily, and whis- 
pered, “ Mamma, take her ! ” as she always does 
in any doubtful or dangerous circumstances. So 
mamma was obliged to carry her across several 
yards of slippery stones, green with moss, that she 
might look up to the water-fall, and down to the 
Dominie’s Hole. She did not quite like it, evi- 
dently, but was not actually frightened — she is 
such a very courageous person whenever she is in 
her mamma’s arms. 

When set down on her own two feet, the case 
was different. She held by her mamma’s gown, 
looked at the noisy tumbling water with anxious 
eyes, and seemed relieved to turn her back upon 
it, and watch the half-dozen merry rivulets into 
which it soon divided as they spread themselves 
in and out over the shallow channel of the stream. 
What charming little baby rivers they were! 
Sunny and her mamma could have played among 
them for hours, damming them up with pebbles, 
jumping over them, floating leaves down them, 
and listening to their ceaseless singing, and their 
dancing too, with bubbles and foam gliding on 
their surface like little fairy boats, till — pop ! — 
all suddenly vanished, and were seen no more. 

It was such a thirsty place, too — until mam- 
ma made her hand into a cup for the little girl, 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


53 


and then the little girl insisted on doing the same 
for mamma, which did not answer quite the same 
purpose, being so small. At last mamma took 
out of her pocket a letter (it was a sad letter, with 
a black edge, but the child did not know that), 
and made its envelope into a cup, from which 
Sunny drank in the greatest delight. Afterwards 
she administered it to her mamma and her Lizzie, 
till the saturated paper began? to yield — its in- 
nocent little duty was done. However, Sunny 
insisted on filling it again herself, and was greatly 
startled when the bright fierce-running water took 
it right out of her hand, whirled it along for a 
yard or two, and then sunk it, soaked through, in 
the first eddy which the stream reached. 

Poor child! she looked after her frail treasure 
with eyes in which big tears — and Sunny’s tears, 
when they do come, are so very big ! — were just 
beginning to rise; and her rosy mouth fell at the 
corners, with that pitiful look mamma knows well, 
though it is not often seen. 

“ Never mind, my darling; mamma will make 
her another cup out of the next letter she has. 
Or, better still, she will find her own horn cup, 
that has been to Scotland so often, and gone about 
for weeks in mamma’s pocket, years ago. Now 
Sunny shall have it to drink out of.” 

“ And to swim? May Sunny have it to 
swim? ” 

u No, dear, because, though it would not go 


54 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


down to the bottom like the other cup, it might 
swim right away and be lost, and then mamma 
would be so sorry. No, Sunny can’t have it to 
swim, but she may drink out of it as often as she 
likes. Shall we go home and look for it? ” 

“ Yes.” 

The exact truth, told in an intelligible and rea- 
sonable way, always satisfies this reasonable child, 
who has been accustomed to have every prohibi- 
tion explained to her, so far as was possible. 
Consequently, the sense of injustice, which even 
very young children have, when it is roused, 
never troubles her. She knows mamma will give 
her every thing she can, and when she does not, 
it is simply because she can’t, and she tells Sunny 
why she can’t, whenever Sunny can understand 
it. 

So they climbed contentedly up the steep brae, 
and went home. 

Nothing else happened here — at least to the 
child. If she had a rather dull life, it was a 
peaceful one. She was out-of-doors a great deal, 
with Lizzie and Nelly of afternoons, with her 
mamma of early mornings. Generally, each day, 
the latter contrived to get a quiet hour or two; 
while her child played about the garden steps, 
and she sat reading the newspaper — the terrible 
newspaper ! When Sunny has grown up a woman, 
she will know what a year this year 1870 has been, 
and understand how many a time, when her 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


55 


mamma was walking along with her, holding her 
little hand, and talking about all the pretty things 
they saw, she was thinking of other mothers and 
other children, who, instead of running merrily 
over sunshiny hill-sides, were weeping over dead 
fathers, or dying miserably in burnt villages, or 
starving day by day in besieged cities. This hor- 
rible war, brought about, as war almost always is, 
by a few wicked, ambitious men, made her feel 
half frantic. 

One day especially — the day the Prussians 
came and sat down before Paris, and began the 
siege — Little Sunshine was playing about, with 
her little wooden spade, and a “ luggie ” that her 
papa had lately bought for her; filling it with 
pebbles, and then digging in the garden-beds, with 
all her small might. Her mamma sat on the gar- 
den steps, reading the newspaper. Sunny did not 
approve of this at all. 

“ Come and build me a house.. Put that down,” 
pulling at the newspaper, “ and build Sunny a 
house. Please, mamma,” in a very gentle tone — 
she knows in a minute by mamma’s look when 
she has spoken too roughly — “ Please, mamma, 
come and build Sunny a house.” 

And getting no answer, she looked fixedly at 
her mamma — then hugged her tight round the 
neck, and began to sob for sympathy. Poor lamb ! 
She had evidently thought only little girls cried 
— not mammas at all, 


56 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


The days ran on fast, fast; and it was time for 
another move and another change in Little Sun- 
shine’s holiday. Of course she did not under- 
stand these changes; but she took them cheer- 
fully — she was the very best of little travellers. 
The repeated packing had ceased to he an interest 
to her; she never wanted now to jump upon mam- 
ma’s gowns, and sit down on her bonnets, by way 
of being useful; but still the prospect of going in 
a puff-puff was always felicitous. She told Nelly 
all about it; and how she was afterwards to sail 
in a boat with Maurice and Maurice’s papa (Mau- 
rice was a little playfellow, of whom more pres- 
ently), how they were to go fishing and catch big 
salmon. 

“ Wouldn’t you like to catch a big salmon?” 
she asked Nelly, not recognizing in the least that 
she was parting with her, probably never to meet 
again in all their lives. But the elder child 
looked sad and grave during the whole of that 
day. And when for the last time Nelly put her 
arms round Sunny, and kissed her over and over 
again. Sunny being of course just as merry as 
ever, and quite unconscious that they were bid- 
ding one another good-bye, it was rather hard for 
poor little Nelly. 

However, the child did not forget her kind 
companion. For weeks and even months after- 
wards, upon hearing the least allusion to this 
place. Sunshine would wake up into sudden re- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


57 


membrance. “Where’s Nelly? I want to see 
Nelly — I want Nelly to come and play with me; ” 
and look quite disappointed when told that Nelly 
was far away, and couldn’t come. Which was per- 
haps as much as could be expected of three-years- 
old. 

Always happy in the present, and frightened 
at nothing so long as she was “ close by mam- 
ma,” Little Sunshine took her next journey. On 
the way she staid a night at the sea-side place 
where she had been taken before, and this time 
the weather was kind. She wandered with her 
Lizzie on the beach, and watched the waves for a 
long time; then she went in-doors, to play with 
some other little children, and to pay a visit to 
the dear old lady who had been ill, when she was 
here last. Here I am afraid she did not behave 
quite as well as she ought to have done — being 
tired and sleepy; nor did she half enough value 
the kind little presents she got; but she will some 
day, and understand the difference between 
eighty years of age and three, and how precious 
to a little child is the blessing of an old woman. 

Sunny went to bed rather weary and forlorn, 
but she woke up next morning and ran in to papa 
and mamma, still in her night-gown, with her 
little bare feet pattering along the floor, looking 
as bright as the sunshine itself. Which was very 
bright that day — a great comfort, as there was 
a ten hours’ sea-voyage before the little woman, 


58 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


who had never been on board a steamboat, and 
never travelled so long at a time in all her life. 
She made a good breakfast to start with, sitting at 
table with a lot of grown-up people, whose faces 
were as blithe as her own, and behaving very well, 
considering. Then came another good-bye, of 
course unheeded by Little Sunshine, and she was 
away on her travels once more. 

But what happened to her next must be put 
into a new chapter. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


59 


CHAPTER V. 

T HE pier Sunny started from was one near the 
mouth of a large estuary or firth, where a 
great many ships of all sorts are constantly 
coming and going. Sometimes the firth is very 
stormy, as on the first day when she was there, 
but to-day it was smooth as glass. The mountains 
round it looked half asleep in a sunshiny haze, and 
upon the river itself was not a single ripple. The 
steamers glided up and down in the distance as 
quietly as swans upon a lake. You could just 
catch the faint click-clack of their paddle-wheels, 
and see the long trail of smoke following after 
them, till it melted into nothing. 

“Where’s Sunny’s steamboat? Sunny is going 
a sail in a steamboat,” chattered the little girl; 
who catches up every thing, sometimes even the 
longest words and the queerest phrases, nobody 
knows how. 

Sunny’s steamboat lay alongside the pier. Its 
engines were puffing and its funnel smoking; and 
when she came to the gangway she looked rather 
frightened, and whispered, “ Mamma, take her,” 
holding out those pathetic little arms. 

Mamma took her, and from that safe eminence 
she watched every thing: the men loosing the 


00 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


ropes from the pier, the engines moving, the sea- 
gulls flying about in little flocks, almost as tame 
as pigeons. She was much amused by these sea- 
gulls, which always follow the steamers, seeming 
to know quite well that after every meal on board 
they are sure to get something. She called her 
Lizzie to look at them — her Lizzie, who always 
sympathizes with her in every thing. Now it 
was not quite easy, as Lizzie also had never beem 
on board a steamer before, and did not altogether 
relish it. 

But she, too, soon grew content and happy, for 
it was a beautiful scene. There was no distant 
view, the mountains being all in a mist of heat, 
but the air was so bright and mild, with just 
enough saltness in it to be refreshing, that it must 
have been a very gloomy person who did not enjoy 
the day. Little Sunshine did to the utmost. She 
could not talk, but became absorbed in looking 
about her, endless wonder at every thing she saw 
or heard shining in her blue eyes. Soon she heard 
something which brightened them still more. 

“ Hark, mamma ! music ! Sunny hears music.” 

It was a flute played on the lower deck, and 
played exceedingly well. 

Now this little girl has a keen sense of music. 
Before she could speak, singing always soothed 
her; and she has long been in the habit of com- 
manding extempore tunes — “a tune that Sunny 
never heard before,” sometimes taking her turn 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


61 


to offer one. “ Mamma, shall I sing yon a song 
— a song yon never heard before ? ” (Which cer- 
tainly mamma never had.) She distingnishes 
tunes at once, and is very critical over them. 
“ Sunny likes it,” or “ Snnny don’t like it — it 
isn’t pretty ; ” and at the sound of any sort of 
music she pricks up her ears, and will begin to 
cry passionately if not taken to listen. 

This flute she went after at once. It was played 
by a blind man, who stood leaning against the 
stairs leading to the higher deck, his calm sight- 
less face turned up to the dazzling sunshine. It 
could not hurt him; he seemed even to enjoy it. 
There was nobody listening, but he played on quite 
unconsciously, one Scotch tune after another, the 
shrill, clear, pure notes floating far over the sea. 
Sunny crept closer and closer — her eyes growing 
larger and larger with intense delight — till the 
man stopped playing. Then she whispered, 

“ Mamma, look at that poor man! Somekin 
wrong with his eyes.” 

Sunny has been taught that whenever there is 
“ somekin (something) wrong ” with any body — 
when they are blind, or lame, or ugly, or queer- 
looking, we are very sorry for them, but we never 
notice it; and so, though she has friends who can 
not run about after her, but walk slowly with a 
stick, or even two sticks — also other friends who 
only feel her little face, and pass their hands over 
her hair, saying how soft it is — mamma is never 


62 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


afraid of her making any remark that could wound 
their feelings. 

“ Hush ! the poor man can’t see, hut we must 
not say any thing about it. Come with mamma, 
and we will give him a penny.” All sorts of 
money are “ pennies ” to Sunny — brown pennies, 
white pennies, yellow pennies ; only she much pre- 
fers the brown pennies, because they are largest, 
and spin the best. 

So she and mamma went up together to the 
poor blind man. Sunny looking hard at him; and 
he was not pleasant to look at, as his blindness 
seemed to have been caused by small-pox. But the 
little girl said not a word, only put the white 
“ penny 99 into his hand, and went away. 

I wonder whether he felt the touch of those 
baby fingers, softer than most. Perhaps he did, 
for he began to play again, the “ Flowers of the 
Forest,” with a pathos that even mamma in all 
her life had never heard excelled. The familiar 
mountains, the gleaming river, the “ sunshiny ” 
child, with her earnest face, and the blind man 
playing there, in notes that almost spoke the 
well-known words, 

“ Thy frown canna fear me, thy smile eanna cheer me, 
For the flowers o’ the forest are a’ wede away.” 

It was a picture not easily to be forgotten. 

Soon the steamer stopped at another pier, 
where were waiting a number of people, ready to 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


embark on a large excnrsion-boat which all sum- 
mer long goes up and down the firth daily, tak- 
ing hundreds of passengers, and giving them 
twelve pleasant hours of sea air and mountain 
breezes. She was called the “Iona,” and such a 
big boat as she was! She had two decks, with a 
saloon below. On the first deck, the passengers 
sat in the open air, high up, so as to see all the 
views; the second was under cover, with glass 
sides, so that they could still see all about; the 
third, lower yet, was the cabin, where they dined. 
There was a ladies* cabin, too, where a good many 
babies and children, with their nurses and mam- 
mas, generally staid all the voyage. Altogether, 
a most beautiful boat, with plenty of play-places 
for little folk, and comfortable nooks for elder 
ones; and so big, too, that as she came steaming 
down the river, she looked as if she could carry a 
townful of people. Indeed, this summer, when 
nobody has travelled abroad, owing to the war, the 
“Iona** had carried regularly several hundreds a 
day. 

Sunny gazed with some amazement from the 
pier, where she had disembarked, in her mam- 
ma’s arms. It is fortunate for Sunny that she has 
a rather tall mamma, so that she feels safely ele- 
'vated above any crowed. This was a crowd such 
as she had never been in before; it jostled and 
pushed her, and she had to hold very tight round 
her mamma’s neck; so great was the confusion, 


04 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


and so difficult the passage across the gangway to 
the deck of the “ Iona.” Once there, however, 
she was as safe and happy as possible, playing all 
sorts of merry tricks, and wandering about the 
boat in all directions, with her papa, or her Lizzie, 
or two young ladies who came with her, and were 
very kind to her. But after a while these quitted 
the boat, and were watched climbing up a moun- 
tain-side as cleverly as if they had been young deer. 
Sunny would have liked to climb a mountain too, 
and mamma promised her she should some day. 

She was now in the very heart of the High- 
lands. There were mountains on all sides, re- 
flected everywhere in the narrow seas through 
which the boat glided. Now and then came 
houses and piers, funny little “ baby ” piers, at 
which the “ Iona ” stopped and took up or set 
down passengers, when every body rushed to the 
side to look on. Sunny rushed likewise; she be- 
came so interested and excited in watching the 
long waves the boat left behind her when her 
paddles began to move again, that her mamma 
was sometimes frightened out of her life that the 
child should overbalance herself, and tumble in. 
Once or twice poor mamma spoke so sharply that 
Sunny, utterly unaccustomed to this, turned round 
in- mute surprise. But little girls, not old enough 
to understand danger, do not know what terrors 
mammas go through sometimes for their sakes. 

It was rather a relief when Sunny became very 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


65 


hungry, and the bag of biscuits and the bottle of 
milk occupied her for a good while. Then she 
turned sleepy. The little Maymie’s apron being 
secretly produced, she, laughing a little, began to 
suck it, under cover of mamma’s shawl. Soon she 
went to sleep, and lay for nearly an hour in per- 
fect peace, her eyes shut upon mountains, sea, 
and sky ; and the sun shining softly upon her little 
face and her gold curls, that nestled close into 
mamma’s shoulder. Such a happy child ! 

Almost cruel it seemed to wake her up, but 
necessary; for there came another change. The 
“ Iona’s ” voyage was done. The next stage of 
the journey was through a canal, where were 
sights to be seen so curious that papa and mamma 
were as much interested in them as the little girl, 
who was growing quite an old traveller now. She 
woke up, rubbed her eyes, and, not crying at all, 
was carried ashore, and into the middle of another 
crowd. There was a deal of talking and scram- 
bling, and rushing about with bags and cloaks, 
then all the heavier luggage was put into two 
gigantic wagons, which four great horses walked 
away with, and the passengers walked in a 
long string of twos and threes, each after the 
others, for about a quarter of a mile, till they came 
to the canal-side. There lay a boat so big, that 
it could only go forward and backward — I am 
sure if it had wanted to turn itself round it could 
not possibly have done so ! On board of it all the 
5 


60 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


people began to climb. Very funny people some 
of them were. 

There was one big tall gentleman in a dress 
Sunny had never seen before — a cap on his head 
with a feather in it, a bag with furry tails dang- 
ling from his waist, and a petticoat like a little 
girl. He had also rather queer shoes and stock- 
ings, and when he took out from his ankle, as it 
seemed, a shiny-handled sort of knife, and slipped 
it back again. Sunny was very much surprised. 

“ Mamma / 5 she whispered, “ what does that 
gentleman keep his knife in his stocking for? ” 
A question to which mamma could only answer 
“ that she really didn’t know. Perhaps he hadn’t 
got a pocket.” 

“ Sunny will give him her pocket — her French 
pinafore with pockets in it, shall she? ” 

Mamma thought the big Highlander might not 
care for Sunny’s pretty muslin pinafore, with 
embroidery and Valenciennes lace, sewn for her 
by loving, dainty hands; and as the boat now 
moved away, and he was seen stalking majestically 
off along the road, there was no need to ask him 
the question. 

For a little while the boat glided along the 
smooth canal, so close to either side that you felt 
as if you could almost pluck at the bushes, and 
ferns, and trailing brambles, with fast-ripening 
berries, that hung over the water. On the other 
side was a foot-road, where, a little way behind, 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


67 


a horse was dragging, with a long rope, a small, 
deeply-laden canal-boat, not pretty like this one, 
which went swiftly and merrily along by steam. 
But at last it came to a stand, in front of two 
huge wooden gates which shut the canal in, and 
through every crevice of which the pent-in water 
kept spouting in tiny cataracts. 

“ That’s the first of the locks,” said papa, who 
had seen it all before, and took his little girl to the 
end of the boat to show her the wonderful sight. 

She was not old enough to have it explained or 
to understand what a fine piece of engineering 
work this canal is. It cuts across country from 
sea to sea, and the land not being level, but rising 
higher in the middle, and as you know water will 
not run up a hill-side and down again, these locks 
had to be made. They are, so to speak, boxes of 
water with double gates at either end. The boat 
is let into them, and shut in; then the water upon 
which it floats is gradually raised or lowered ac- 
cordingly as may be necessary, until it reaches the 
level of the canal beyond the second gate, which 
is opened and the boat goes in. There are eight 
or nine of these locks within a single mile — a 
very long mile, which occupies fully an hour. 
So the captain told his passengers they might get 
out and walk, which many of them did. But 
Sunshine, her papa and mamma, were much more 
amused in watching the great gates opening and 
shutting, and the boat rising or falling through 


68 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


the deep sides of the locks. Besides, the little 
girl called it “ a bath/’ and expressed a strong 
desire to jump in and “ swim like a fish,” with 
mamma swimming after her ! So mamma thought 
it as well to hold her fast by her clothes the whole 
time. 

Especially when another interest came — three 
or four little Highland girls running alongside, 
jabbering gayly, and holding out glasses of milk. 
Her own bottle being nearly drained, Sunny beg- 
ged for some; and the extraordinary difficulty 
papa had in stretching over to get the milk with- 
out spilling it, and return the empty glass without 
breaking it, was a piece of fun more delightful 
than even the refreshing draught. “Again ! ” she 
said, and wanted the performance all repeated for 
her private amusement. 

She had now resumed her old tyranny over her 
papa, whom she pursued every where. He could 
not find a single corner of the boat in which to 
hide and read his newspaper quietly, without hear- 
ing the cry, “ Where’s my papa? Sunny must go 
after papa,” and there was the little figure clutch- 
ing at his legs, “ Take her up in your arms ! up in 
your own arms! ” To which the victim, not un- 
willingly, consented, and carried her everywhere. 

Little Sunshine’s next great diversion was din- 
ner. It did not happen till late in the afternoon, 
when she had gone through, cheerfully as ev'er, 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


69 


another change of boat, and was steaming away 
through the open sea, which, however, was fortu- 
nately calm as a duck-pond, or what would have 
become of this little person? 

Papa questioned very much whether she was 
not far too little a person to dine at the cabin- 
table with all the other grown-up passengers, but 
mamma answered for her that she would behave 
properly — she always did whenever she promised. 
For Sunny has the strongest sense of keeping a 
promise. Her one argument when wanting a 
thing, an argument she knows never denied, is, 
“ Mamma, you promised.” And her shoe-maker, 
who once neglected to send home her boots, has 
been immortalized in her memory as “ Mr. James 
So-and-So, who broke his promise.” 

So, having promised to be good, she gravely 
took her papa’s hand and walked with him down 
the long cabin to her place at the table. There 
she sat, quite quiet, and very proud of her posi- 
tion. She ate little, being too deeply occupied in 
observing every thing around her. And she talked 
still less, only whispering mysteriously to her 
mamma once or twice, 

“ Sunny would like a potato, with butter on 
it.” “ Might Sunny have one little biscuit — 
just one? ” 

But she troubled nobodjq spilt nothing, not even 
her glass of water, though it was so big that with 
both her fat hands she could scarcely hold it; and 


70 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


said “ Thank you ” politely to a gentleman who 
handed her a piece of bread. In short, she did 
keep her promise, conducting herself throughout 
the meal with perfect decorum. But when it was 
over, I think she was rather glad. 

“ Sunny may get down now?” she whispered; 
adding, “ Sunny was quite good, she was.” For 
the little woman always likes to have her virtues 
acknowledged. 

And in re-mounting the companion-ladder, 
rather a trial for her small legs, she looked at the 
steward, who was taking his money, and observed 
to him in a confidential tone, “ Sunny has had a 
good dinner ; Sunny liked it ” — at which the 
young man couldn’t help laughing. 

But every body laughs at Sunny, or with her — 
she has such an endless fund of enjoyment in 
every thing. The world to her is one perpetual 
kaleidoscope of ever-changing delights. 

Immediately after dinner she had a pleasure 
quite new. Playing about the deck, she suddenly 
stopped and listened. 

“ Mamma, hark ! there’s music. May Sunny go 
after the music?” And her little feet began to 
dance rather than walk, as, pulling her mamma 
by the hand, she “ went after ” a German band 
that was playing at the other end of the vessel. 

Little Sunshine had never before heard a hand, 
and this was of wind instruments, played very 
well, as most German musicians can play. The 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


71 


music seemed to quiver all through her, down to 
her very toes. And when the dance-tune stopped, 
and her dancing feet likewise, and the band struck 
up the beautiful “ Wacht am Rhein ” — the Watch 
on the Rhine — (oh ! if its singers had only stop- 
ped there, defending their fatherland, and not in- 
vaded the lands of other people!) this little girl, 
who knew nothing about French and Prussians, 
stood absorbed in solemn delight. Her hands were 
folded together (a trick she has), her face grew 
grave, and a soul far deeper than three years old 
looked out of her intent eyes. For when Sunny 
is earnest, she is very earnest ; and when she turns 
furious, half a dozen tragedies seem written in her 
firm-set mouth, knitted brow, and flashing eyes. 

She was disposed to be furious for a minute, 
when her Lizzie tried to get her away from the 
music. But her mamma let her stay, so she did 
stay close to the musicians, until the playing was 
all done. 

It was growing late in the afternoon, near her 
usual bed-time, but no going to bed was possible. 
The steamboat kept ploughing on through lonely 
seas, dotted with many islands, larger or smaller, 
with high mountains on every side, some of them 
sloping down almost to the water’s edge. Here 
and there was a solitary cottage or farm-house, 
but nothing like a town or village. The steam- 
boat seemed to have the whole world to itself — 
sea, sky, mountains — a magnificent range of 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


mountains! behind which the sun set in such 
splendor that papa and mamma, watching it to- 
gether, quite forgot for the time being the little 
person who was not old enough to care for sun- 
sets. 

When they looked up, catching the sound of 
her laughter, there she was, in a state of the high- 
est enjoyment, having made friends, all of her 
own accord, with two gentlemen on board who 
played with her and petted her extremnly. One 
of them had just taken out of his pocket a wonder- 
ful bird, wdiich jumped out of a box, shook itself, 
warbled a most beautiful tune, and then popped 
down in the box again; not exactly a toy for a 
child, as only about half a dozen have ever been 
made, and they generally cost about a hundred 
guineas apiece. 

Of course Sunny was delighted. She listened 
intently to the warble, and whenever the bird 
popped down and hid itself again, she gave a 
scream of ecstasy. But she can not enjoy things 
alone. 

“ May mamma come and see it? Mamma would 
like to see it, she would ! ” And, running back, 
Sunny drew her mamma, with all her little might, 
over to where the gentlemen were sitting. 

They were very polite to the unknown lady, and 
went over the performance once again for her 
benefit. And they were exceedingly kind to her 
little girl, showing a patience quite wonderful, 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


73 


unless, indeed, they had little girls of their own. 
They tried pertinaciously to find out Sunny’s 
name, but she as persistently refused to disclose 
it — that is, any thing more than her Christian 
name, which is rather a peculiar one, and which 
she always gives with great dignity and accuracy, 
at full length. (Which, should they really have 
little girls of their own, and should they buy this 
book for them and read it, those two gentlemen 
will probably remember; nor think the worse of 
themselves that their kindness helped to while 
away what might otherwise have been rather 
dreary, the last hour of the voyage — a very long 
voyage for such a small traveller.) 

It was ended at last. The appointed pier, a 
solitary place where only one other passenger was 
landed, stood out distinct in the last rays of sun- 
set. Once again the child was carried across one 
of those shaky gangways — neither frightened 
nor cross, and quite cheerful and wide-awake still. 
Nay, she even stopped at the pier-head, her atten- 
tion caught by some creatures more weary than 
herself. 

Half a dozen forlorn sheep, their legs tied to- 
gether, and their heads rolling about, with the 
most piteous expression in their open eyes, lay 
together, waiting to be put on board. The child 
went up to them and stroked their faces. 

“ Poor little baa-lambs, don’t be so frightened ; 
you won’t be frightened, now Sunny has patted 


74 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


you,” said she, in her tenderest voice. And then, 
after having walked a few yards, 

“ Sunny must go back. Please, mamma, may 
Sunny go back to say good-bye to those poor little 
baa-lambs.” 

But the baa-lambs had already been tossed on 
board, and the steamer was away with them into 
the dark. 

Into the dark poor little Sunny had also to go; 
a drive of nine miles across country, through 
dusky glens, and coming out by loch sides, and 
under the shadow of great mountains, above whose 
tops the stars were shining. Only the stars, for 
there was no moon, and no lamps to the carriage; 
and the driver, when spoken to, explained — in 
slow Highland English, and in a mournful man- 
ner, evidently not understanding the half of what 
was said to him — that there were several miles 
farther to go ? and several hills to climb yet; and 
that the horse was lame, and the road not as safe 
as it might be. A prospect which made the elders 
of the party not perfectly happy, as may well be 
imagined. 

But the child was as merry as possible, though 
it was long past her tea-time and she had had no 
tea, and past bed-time, yet there was no bed to 
go to ; she kept on chattering till it was quite dark, 
and then cuddled down, making “ a baby ” of her 
mamma’s hand — a favorite amusement. And so 
she lay, the picture of peace, until the carriage 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


75 


stopped at the welcome door, and there stood a 
friendly group with two little hoys in front of it. 
After eleven hours of travelling, Little Sunshine 
had reached a shelter at last! 


TG 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER VI. 

S UNRISE among the mountains. Who that 
has ever seen it can forget it? Sunny’s 
mamma never could. 

Arriving here after dark, she knew no more of 
the place than the child did. But the first thing 
she did on waking next morning was to creep past 
the sofa where Sunny lay — oh, so fast asleep ! 
having had a good scream overnight, as was 
natural after all her fatigues — steal cautiously 
to the window, and look out. 

Such a sight! At the foot of a green slope, or 
sort of rough lawn, lay the little loch so often 
spoken of, upon which Sunny was to go a-fishing 
and catch big salmon with Maurice’s papa. Round 
it was a ring of mountains, so high that they 
seemed to shut out half the sky. These were re- 
flected in the water, so solidly and with such a 
sharp clear outline, that one could hardly believe 
it was only a reflection. Above their summit was 
one mass of deep rose-color, and this also was re- 
peated in the loch, so that you could not tell which 
was reddest, the water or the sky. Every thing 
was perfectly still; not a ripple moved, not a leaf 
stirred, not a bird was awake. An altogether new 
and magic world. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


77 


Sunny was too much of a baby yet to care for 
sunrise, or indeed for any thing just now, except 
a good long sleep, so her mamma let her sleep 
her fill ; and when she woke at last, she was as 
bright as a bird. 

Long before she was dressed, she heard down 
stairs the voices of the five little boys who were 
to be her companions. Their papa and mamma 
having no objection to their names being told, I 
giv'e them, for they were five very pretty names: 
Maurice, Phil, Eddie, Franky, and Austin Thomas. 
The latter being the youngest, though by no 
means the smallest or thinnest, generally had his 
name in full, with variations, such as Austin 
Tummas, or Austin Tummacks. Maurice, too, 
was occasionally called Maurie — but not often, 
being the eldest, you see. 

He was seven, very small for his age, but with 
a face almost angelic in its delicate beauty. The 
first time Sunny saw him, a few months before, 
she had seemed quite fascinated by it, put her 
two hands on his shoulders, and finally held up 
her mouth to kiss him — which she seldom does 
to any children, rather preferring “ grown-ups,” 
as she calls them, for playfellows. She had talked 
ever since of Maurice, Maurice’s papa, Maurice’s 
boat, and especially of Maurice’s “ little baby,” 
the only sister of the five boys. Yet when he came 
to greet her this morning, she was q.uite shy, and 
would not play with him or Eddie, or even 


78 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Franky, who was nearer her own age; and when 
her mamma lifted up Austin Thomas, younger 
than herself, hut much bigger in every way, and 
petted him a little, this poor little woman fell into 
great despair. 

“ Don’t kiss him. I don’t want you to kiss 
Austin Thomas ! ” she cried, and the passion 
which can arise at times in her merry blue eyes 
rose now. She clung to her mamma, almost 
sobbing. 

Of course this was not right, and, as I said be- 
fore, the little girl is not a perfect little girl. She 
is naughty at times, like all of us. Still, mamma 
was rather sorry for her. It was difficult for an 
only child, accustomed to have her mamma all to 
herself, to tumble suddenly into such a crowd of 
boys, and see that mamma could be kind to and 
fond of other children besides her own, as all 
mothers ought to be, without taking away one 
atom from the special mother’s love, which no 
little people need be jealous over. Sunny bore the 
trial pretty well, on the whole. She did not 
actually cry — but she kept fast hold of her mam- 
ma’s gown, and watched her with anxious eyes 
whenever she spoke to any other child, and espe- 
cially to Austin Thomas. 

The boys were very kind to her. Maurice went 
and took hold of her hand, trying to talk to her in 
his gentle way; his manners were as sweet as his 
face. Eddie, who was stronger and rougher, and 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


79 


more boyish, wanted her to go down with him to 
the pier — a small erection of stones at the shal- 
low edge of the loch, where two or three boats 
always lay moored. Consequently the boys kept 
tumbling in and out of them, and in and out of 
the water too, very often — all day long. But 
the worst they ever could get was a good wetting 

— except Austin Thomas, who one day toddled in 
and slipped down, and, being very fat, could not 
pull himself up again; so that, shallow as the 
water was, he was very near being drowned. But 
Maurice and Eddie were almost “ water babies ” 

— so thoroughly at home in the loch — and Ed- 
die, though under six years old, could already 
handle an oar. 

“ I can low ” (row — he could not speak plain 
yet). “I once lowed grandpapa all across the 
loch. Shall I low you and the little girl?” 

But mamma rather hesitated at accepting the 
kind offer, and compromised the matter by going 
down to the pier with Sunny in her arms, to watch 
Eddie “ low ” — about three yards out and back 
again — in a carefully-moored boat. Sunny im- 
mediately wanted to go too, and mamma promised 
her she should, after breakfast, when papa was 
there to take care of her. 

So the little party went back to the raised ter- 
race in front of the house, where the sun was 
shining so bright, and where Phil, who was in 
delicate health, stood looking on with his pale, 


80 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


quiet face — sadly quiet and grave for such a 
child — and Franky, who was reserved and shy, 
stopped a moment in his solitary playing to notice 
the new-comer, but did not offer to go near her„ 
Austin Thomas, however, kept pulling at her with 
his stout chubby arms, but whether he meant 
caressing or punching, it was difficult to say. 
Sunny opposed a dignified resistance, and would 
not look at Austin Thomas at all. 

“ Mamma, I want to stop with you. May Sunny 
stop with you?” implored she. “ You said 
Sunny should go in the boat with you? ” 

Mamma always does what she says, if she pos- 
sibly can, and besides, she felt a sympathy for her 
lonely child, who had not been much used to play 
with other children. So she kept Sunny beside 
her till they went down together — papa too — 
for their first row on the loch. 

Such a splendid day! Warm but fresh — how 
could it help being fresh in that pure mountain 
air, which turned Sunny J s cheeks the color of 
opening rose-buds, and made even papa and mam- 
ma feel almost as young as she? Big people like 
holidays as well as little people, and it was long 
since they had had a holiday. This was the very 
perfection of one, when every body did exactly as 
they liked : which consisted chiefly in doing noth- 
ing from morning till night. 

Sunny was the only person who objected to idle- 
ness. She must always be doing something. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


81 


“ I want to catch fishes,” said she, after having 
sat quiet by mamma’s side in the stern of the boat 
for about three minutes and a half: certainly not 
longer, though it was the first time she had ever 
been in a boat in all her life, and the novelty of 
her position sufficed to sober her for just that 
length of time. “ I want to catch big salmon all 
by my own self.” 

A fishing-rod had, just as a matter of ceremony, 
been put into the boat; but as papa held the two 
oars, and mamma the child, it was handed over to 
Lizzie, who sat in the bow. However, not a single 
trout offering to bite, it was laid aside, and papa’s 
walking-stick used instead. This was shorter, 
more convenient, and had a beautiful hooked 
handle which could catch floating leaves. Leaves 
were much more easily caught than fishes, and 
did quite as well. 

The little girl had now her heart’s desire. She 
was in a boat fishing. 

“ Sunny has caught a fish ! Such a big fish ! ” 
cried she in her shrillest treble of delight, every 
time that event happened. And it happened so 
often that the bench was soon quite “ soppy ” with 
wet leaves. Then she gave up the rod, and fished 
with her hands, mamma holding her as tight as 
possible, lest she should overbalance, and be 
turned into a fish herself. But water will wet; 
and mamma could not save her from getting her 
poor little hands all blue and cold, and her sleeves 
6 


82 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


soaked through. She did not like this; but what 
will not we endure, even at two-and-three-quarter 
years old, in pursuit of some great ambition? It 
was not till her hands were numbed, and her 
pinafore dripping, that Sunny desisted from her 
fishing, and then only because her attention was 
caught by something else even more attractive. 

“ What’s that, mamma? What’s that?” 

“ Water-lilies.” 

Papa, busily engaged in watching his little girl, 
had let the boat drift upon a shoal of them, which 
covered one part of the loch like a floating island. 
They were so beautiful, with their leaves lying 
like green plates flat on the surface of the water, 
and their white flowers rising up here and there 
like ornamental cups. No wonder the child was 
delighted. 

“ Sunny wants a water-lily,” said she, catching 
the word, though she had never heard it before. 
“ May Sunny have one, two water-lilies? Two 
water-lilies! Please, mamma? ” 

This was more easily promised than performed, 
for, in spite of papa’s skill, the boat always man- 
aged to glide either too far off, or too close to, or 
right on the top of the prettiest flowers; and when 
snatched at, they always would dive down under 
water, causing the boat to lurch after them in a 
way particularly unpleasant. At last, out of 
about a dozen unsuccessful attempts, papa cap- 
tured two expanded flowers, and one bud, all with 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


83 


long stalks. They were laid along the seat of the 
boat, which had not capsized, nor had any body 
tumbled out of it — a thing that mamma con- 
sidered rather lucky, upon the whole, and insisted 
on rowing away out of the region of water-lilies. 

“ Let us go up the canal, then,” said papa, whom 
his host had already taken there, to show him a 
very curious feature of the loch. 

Leading out of one end of it, and communicat- 
ing between it and a stream that fed it from the 
neighboring glen, was a channel, called “ the 
canal.” Unlike most Highland streams, it was 
as still as a canal; only it was natural, not arti- 
ficial. Its depth was so great, that a stick fifteen 
feet long failed to find the bottom, which, never- 
theless, from the exceeding clearness of the water, 
could be seen quite plain, with the fishes swim- 
ming about, and the pebbles, stones, or roots of 
trees too heavy to float, lying as they had lain, 
undisturbed, year after year. The banks, instead 
of shallowing off, went sheer down, as deep as in 
the middle, so that you could paddle close under 
the trees that fringed them — gnarled old oaks, 
queerly twisted rowans or beeches, and nut-trees 
with trunks so thick and branches so wide-spread- 
ing, that the great-great-grandfathers of the glen 
must have gone nutting there generations 
back. 

Yet this year they were as full as ever of nuts, 
the gathering of which frightened mamma nearly 


84 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


as much as the water-lilies. For papa, growing 
quite excited, would stand up in the boat and 
pluck at the branches, and would not see that 
nutting on dry land, and nutting in a boat over 
fifteen or twenty feet of water, were two very dif- 
ferent things. Even the little girl, imitating her 
elders, made wild snatches at the branches, and 
it was the greatest relief to mamma’s mind when 
Sunny turned her attention to cracking her 
nuts, which her sharp little teeth did to per- 
fection. 

“ Shall I give you one, mamma ? Papa too ? ” 
And she administered them by turns out of her 
mouth, which if not the politest was the most 
convenient way. At last she began singing a song 
to herself, “ Three little nuts all together ! three 
little nuts all together ! ” Looking into the little 
girl’s shut hands, mamma found — what she in 
all her long life had never found but once before, 
and that was many, many years ago — a triple nut 
— a “ lucky ” nut ; as great a rarity as a four- 
leaved shamrock. 

“ Oh, what a prize ! will Sunny give it to mam- 
ma?” (which she did immediately). “And mam- 
ma will put it carefully by, and keep it for Sunny 
till she is grown a big girl.” 

“ Sunny is a big girl now ; Sunny cracks nuts 
for papa and mamma.” 

Nevertheless, mamma kept the triple nut, as 
she remembered her own mamma keeping the 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


85 


former one, when she herself was a little girl. 
When Sunny grows a woman, she will find both. 

Besides nuts, there were here and there along 
the canal-side long trailing brambles, with such 
huge blackberries on them — blackberries that 
seem to take a malicious pleasure in growing where 
nobody can get at them. Nobody could gather 
them except out of a boat, and then with diffi- 
culty. The best of them had after all to he left 
to the birds. 

Oh, what a place this canal must have been 
for birds in spring! What safe nests might be 
built in these overhanging trees! what ceaseless 
songs sung there from morning till night! Now, 
being September, there were almost none. Dead 
silence brooded over the sunshiny crags and the 
motionless loch. When, far up among the hills, 
there was heard the crack of a gun — Maurice’s 
papa’s gun, for it could of course be no other — 
the sound, echoed several times over, was quite 
startling. What had been shot — a grouse, a 
snipe, a wild duck? Perhaps it was a roe deer? 
Papa was all curiosity; but mamma, who dislikes 
shooting altogether, either of animals or men, and 
can not endure the sight of a gun, even unloaded, 
was satisfied with hearing it at a distance, and 
counting its harmless echoes from mountain to 
mountain. 

What mountains they were! — standing in a 
circle, gray, bare, silent, with their peaks far up 


86 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


into the sky. Some had been climbed by the 
gentlemen in this shootmg lodge, or by Donald, 
the keeper, but it was hard work, and some had 
never been climbed at all. The clouds and mists 
floated over them, and sometimes, perhaps, a stray 
grouse, or capercailzie, or ptarmigan, paid them 
a visit, but that was all. They were too steep and 
bare even for the roe deer. Yet, oh! how grand 
they looked, grand and calm, like great giants, 
whom nothing small and earthly could affect at 
all. 

The mountains were too big, as yet, for Little 
Sunshine. Her baby eyes did not take them in. 
She saw them, of course, but she was evidently 
much more interested in the nuts overhead, and 
the fishes under water. And when the boat 
reached “ The Bower/’ she thought it more 
amusing still. 

“ The Bower,” so called, was a curious place, 
where the canal grew so narrow, and the trees so 
big, that the overarching boughs met in the 
middle, forming a natural arbor — only of water, . 
not land — under which the boat swept for a 
good many yards. You had to stoop your head to 
avoid being caught by the branches, and the ferns 
and moss on either bank grew so close to your 
hand, that you could snatch at them as you swept 
"by — which Little Sunshine thought the greatest 
fun in the world. 

“ Mamma, let me do it, Please, let Sunny do 
it her own self.” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


87 


To do a thing “ all my own self ” is always a 
great attraction to this independent little person, 
and her mamma allows it whenever possible. Still 
there are some things which mammas may do, and 
little people may not, and this was one of them. 
It was obliged to he forbidden as dangerous, and 
Little Sunshine clouded over almost to tears. But 
she never worries her mamma for things, well 
aware that “No” means no, and “ Yes,” yes; and 
that neither are subject to alteration. And the 
boat being speedily rowed out of temptation’s way 
into the open loch again, she soon found another 
amusement. 

On the loch, besides waterfowl, such as wild 
ducks, teal, and the like, lived a colony of geese. 
They had once been tame geese belonging to the 
farm, hut they had emigrated, and turned into 
wild geese, making their nests wherever they 
liked, and bringing up their families in freedom 
and seclusion. As to catching them like ordinary 
geese, it was hopeless; whenever wanted for the 
table they had to he shot like game. This 
catastrophe had not happened lately, and they 
swam merrily about — a flock of nine large white, 
lively, independent birds, which could he seen far 
off, sailing about like a fleet of ships on the quiet 
waters of the loch. They would allow you to row 
within a reasonable distance of them, just so close 
and no closer, then off they flew in a body, with 
a great screeching and flapping of wings — 


88 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


geese, even wild geese, being rather unwieldly 
birds. 

Their chief haunt was a tiny island just at the 
mouth of the canal, and there papa rowed, just to 
have a look at them, for one was to be shot for the 
Michaelmas dinner. (It never was, by-the-bye, 
and, for all I know, still sails cheerfully upon its 
native loch.) 

“ Oh, the ducks — the ducks!” (Sunny calls 
all water-birds ducks.) She clapped her hands, 
and away they flew, right over her head, at once 
frightening and delighting her; then watched 
them longingly until they dropped down again, 
and settled in the farthest corner of the loch. 

“ Might Sunny go after them? Might Sunny 
have a dear little duck to play with? ” 

The hopelessness of which desire might have 
made her turn melancholy again, only just then 
appeared, rowing with great energy, bristling with 
flshing-rods, and crowded with little people as 
well as “ grown-ups,” the big boat. It was so 
busy that it hardly condescended to notice the 
little pleasure-boat with only idle people sailing 
about in the sunshine, and doing nothing more 
useful than catching water-lilies and frightening 
geese. 

Still the little boat greeted the large one with 
an impertinent hail of “ Ship ahoy ! what ship’s 
that?” and took in a cargo of small boys, who, 
as it was past one o’clock, were wanted home to 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


89 


the nursery dinner. And papa rowed the whole 
lot of them back to the pier, where every body 
was safely landed. Nobody tumbled in, and no- 
body was drowned — which mamma thought, on 
the whole, was a great deal to be thankful for. 


90 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER VII. 

L IFE at the glen went on every day alike, in 
the simplest, happiest fashion, a sort of 
paradise of chidren, as in truth it was. 
Even the elders lived like children ; and big people 
and little people were together, more or less, all 
day long. A thing not at all objectionable when 
the children are good children, as these were. 

The boys were noisy, of course, and, after the 
first hour of the morning, clean faces, hands, and 
clothes became a difficulty quite insurmountable, 
in which their mother had to resign herself to 
fate; as the mamma of five boys, running about 
wild in the Highlands, necessarily must. But 
these were good, obedient, gentlemanly little fel- 
lows, and, had it been possible to keep them clean 
and whole, which it wasn’t, very pretty little fel- 
lows too. 

Of course they had a few boyish propensities, 
which increased the difficulty. Maurice, for in- 
stance, had an extraordinary love for all creeping 
things, and especially worms. On the slightest 
pretense of getting bait to fish with, he would go 
digging for them, and stuff them into his pockets; 
wffience, if you met him, you were as likely as not 
to see one or tw r o crawling out. If you remon- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


91 


strated he looked unhappy, for Maurice really 
loved his worms. He cherished them carefully, 
and did not in the least mind their crawling over 
his hands, his dress, or his plate. Only unfortu- 
nately other people did. When scolded, he put 
his pets meekly aside, but always returned to them 
with the same love as ever. Perhaps Maurice may 
turn out a great naturalist some day. 

The one idea of Eddie’s life was boats. He 
was forever at the little pier waiting a chance of 
a row, and always wanting to “ low ” somebody, 
especially with “ two oars,” which he handled un- 
commonly well for so small a child. Fortunately 
tor him, though not for his papa and the salmon- 
fishers, the weather was dead calm, so that it was 
like paddling on a duck-pond; and the loch being 
shallow just at the pier, except a few good 
wettings, which he seemed to mind as little as if 
he were a frog, bright, brave, adventurous Eddie 
came to no harm. 

Nor Franky, who imitated him admiringly 
whenever he could. But Franky, who was rather 
a reserved little man, and given to playing alone, 
had, besides the pier, another favorite play-place, 
a hollow cut out in the rock to receive the burn 
which leaped down from the hill-side just behind 
the house. Being close to the kitchen door, it 
was put to all sorts of domestic uses, being gen- 
erally full of pots and pans, saucepans and kettles 
— not the most advisable playthings, but Franky 


92 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


found them charming. He also unluckily found 
out something else — that the hollow basin had 
an outlet, through which any substance, sent swim- 
ming down the swift stream, swam away beauti- 
fully for several yards, and then disappeared un- 
derground. And the other end of this subter- 
raneous channel being in the loch, of course it 
disappeared forever. In this way there vanished 
mysteriously all sorts of things — cups and 
saucers, toys, pinafores, hats; which last Franky 
was discovered in the act of making away with, 
watching them floating off with extreme delight. 
It was no moral crime, and hardly punishable, but 
highly inconvenient. Sunny’s beloved luggie, 
which had been carried about with her for weeks, 
was believed to have disappeared in this way, and, 
as it could not sink, is probably now drifting some- 
where about on the loch, to the great perplexity 
of the fishes. 

Little Phil, alas! was too delicate to be mis- 
chievous. He crept about in the sunshine, not 
playing with any body, but just looking on at the 
rest, with his pale, sweet, pensive face. He was 
very patient and good, and he suffered very much. 
One day, hearing his uncle at family prayers pray 
that God would make him better, he said sadly, 
“ If He does, I wish He would make haste about 
it.” Which was the only complaint gentle pathetic 
little Phil was ever heard to utter. 

Sunny regarded him with some awe, as “the 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


93 


poor little boy who was so ill.” For herself, she 
has never yet known what illness is; but she is 
very sympathetic over it in others. Any body’s 
being “ not well,” will at once make her tender 
and gentle; as she always was to Phil. He in his 
turn was very kind to her ; lending her hia 
“ music,” which was the greatest favor he could 
bestow or she receive. 

This “ music ” was a box of infantile instru- 
ments, one for each boy — trumpet, drum, fife, 
etc., making a complete band, which a rash- 
minded but affectionate aunt had sent them, and 
with which they marched about all day long, to 
their own great delight and the corresponding 
despair of their elders. Phil, who had an ear, 
would go away quietly with his “ music ” — a 
trumpet, I think it was — and play it all by him- 
self. But the others simply marched about in 
procession, each making the biggest noise he 
could, and watched by Sunny with admiration 
and envy. How and then, out of great benevo- 
lence, one of the boys would lend her his instru- 
ment, and nobody did this so 'often as Phil, though 
of them all he liked playing his music the best. 
The picture of him sitting on the door-step, with 
Ids pale fingers wandering over his instrument, 
and his sickly face looking almost contented as 
he listened to the sound, will long remain in every 
body’s mind. Sunny never objected to her mam- 
ma’s carrying him, as he often had to be carried; 


94 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


though he was fully six years old. He was scarcely 
heavier than the little girl herself. Austin Thomas 
would have made twm of him. 

Austin’s chief peculiarity was this amiable fat- 
ness. He tumbled about like a roly-poly pudding, 
amusing every body, and offending no one but 
Little Sunshine. But his persistent pursuit of her 
mamma, whom he insisted on calling “ Danmam- 
ma 99 (grandmamma), and following whenever he 
saw her, was more than the little girl could bear, 
and she used to knit her brows and look displeased. 
However, mamma never took any notice, knowing 
wdiat a misery to itself and all about it is a jealous 
child. 

Amidst these various amusements passed the 
day. It began at 8 a. m., when Sunshine and her 
mamma usually appeared on the terrace in front 
of the house. They too were “ early birds,” and 
so they got “ the worm ” — that is, a charming 
preliminary breakfast of milk, bread and butter, 
and an egg, which they usually ate on the door- 
step. Sometimes the rest, who had had their por- 
ridge, the usual breakfast of Scotch children — 
and very nice it is, too — gathered round for a 
share; which it was pleasant to give them, for 
they waited so quietly, and were never rough or 
rude. 

Nevertheless, sometimes difficulties arose. The 
tray being placed on the gravel, Maurice often sat 
beside it, and his worms would crawl out of his 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


95 


pocket on to the bread and butter. Then Eddie 
now and then spilt the milk, and Austin Thomas 
would fill the salt-cellar with sand out of the 
gravel-walk, and stir it all up together with the 
egg-spoon; a piece of untidiness which Little Sun- 
shine resented extremely. 

She had never grown reconciled to Austin 
Thomas. In spite of his burly good-nature, and 
his broad beaming countenance (which earned him 
the nickname of “ Cheshire,” from his supposed 
likeness to the Cheshire Cat in “Alice’s Adven- 
tures ”), she refused to play with him; whenever 
he appeared, her eye followed him with distrust 
and suspicion, and when he said “ Danmamma,” 
she would contradict him indignantly. 

“ It isn’t grandmamma, it’s my mamma, my 
own mamma. Co away, naughty boy!” If he 
presumed to touch the said mamma, it was al- 
ways, “ Take me up in your arms, in your own 
arms ” — so as to prevent all possibility of Austin 
Thomas’s getting there. 

But one unlucky day Austin tumbled down, 
and, though more frightened than hurt, cried so 
much that, his own mamma being away, Sunny’s 
mamma took him and comforted him, soothing 
him on her shoulder till he ceased sobbing. This 
was more than human nature could bear. Sunny 
did nothing at the time, except pull frantically at 
her mamma’s gown, but shortly afterwards she 
and Austin Thomas were found by themselves, 


96 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


engaged in single combat on the gravel walk. She 
had seized him by the collar of his frock, and was 
kicking him with all her might, while he on his 
part was pommelling at her with both his little 
fat fists, like an infant prize-fighter. It was a 
pitched battle, pretty equal on both sides ; and con- 
ducted so silently, in such dead earnest, that it 
would have been quite funny — if it had not been 
so very wrong. 

Of course, such things could not be allowed, 
even in babies under three years old. Sunny’s 
mamma ran to the spot and separated the com- 
batants by carrying off her own child right away 
into the house. Sunny was so astonished that 
she did not say a word. And when she found 
that her mamma never said a word neither, but 
bore her along in total silence, she was still more 
surprised. Her bewilderment was at its height, 
when, shutting the bed-room door, her mamma 
set her down, and gave her — not a whipping: 
she objects to whipping under any circumstances 
— but the severest scolding the child had ever had 
in her life. 

When I say “ scolding,” I mean a grave sor- 
rowful rebuke, showing how wicked it was to kick 
any body, and how it grieved mamma that her 
good little girl should be so exceedingly naughty. 
Mamma grieved is a reproach under which Little 
Sunny breaks down at once. Her lips began to 
quiver; she hung her head sorrowfully. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


97 


“ Sunny had better go into the cupboard,” sug- 
gested she. 

“ Yes, indeed,” mamma replied. “ I think the 
cupboard is the only place for such a naughty 
little girl; go in at once.” 

So poor Sunshine crept solemnly into a large 
press with sliding doors, used for hanging up 
clothes, and there remained in silence and dark- 
ness all the while her mamma was dressing to go 
out. At last she put her head through the open- 
ing. 

“ Sunny quite good now, mamma.” 

“ Very well,” said mamma, keeping with diffi- 
culty a grave countenance. “ But will Sunny 
promise never to kick Austin Thomas again?” 

“ Yes.” 

“ Then she may come out of the cupboard and 
kiss mamma.” 

Which she did, with a beaming face, as if noth- 
ing at all had happened. But she did not forget 
her naughtiness. Some days after, she came up, 
and confidentially informed her mamma, as if it 
were an act of great virtue, “ Mamma, Sunny 
’membered her promise. Sunny hasn’t kicked 
the little boy again.” 

After the eight o’clock breakfast, Sunny, her 
mamma, and the five little boys, generally took a 
walk together, or sat telling stories in front of the 
house, till the ten o’clock breakfast of the elders. 
That over, the party dispersed their several ways, 
7 


98 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


wandering about by land or water, and meeting 
occasionally, great folks and small, in boats, or 
by hill-sides, or in-doors at the children’s one 
o’clock dinner — almost the only time, till night, 
that any body ever was in-doors. 

Besides most beautiful walks for the elders, 
there w^ere, close by the house, endless play-places 
for the children, each more attractive than the 
other. The pier on the loch was the great de- 
light; but there was about a hundred yards from 
the house a burn (in fact, burns were always tum- 
bling from the hill-side, wherever you went), with 
a tiny bridge across it, which was a charming spot 
for little people. There usually assembled a 
whole parliament of ducks, and hens, and chick- 
ens, quacking and clucking and gobbling to- 
gether; to their own great content and that of the 
children, especially the younger ones. Thither 
came Austin Thomas with his nurse Grissel, a 
thorough Scotch lassie; and Sunny with her Eng- 
lish Lizzie; and there the baby, the pet of all, tiny 
“ Miss Mary,” a soft dainty cuddling thing of six 
months old, used to be brought to lie and sleep 
in the sunshine, watched by Little Sunshine with 
never-ending interest. She would go anywhere 
with “ the dear little baby.” The very intonation 
of her voice, and the expression of her eyes, 
changed as she looked at it — for this little girl 
is passionately fond of babies. 

Farther down the mountain-road was another 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


99 


attractive corner, a stone dike, covered with in- 
numerable blackberries. Though gathered daily, 
there were each morning more to gather, and they 
furnished an endless feast for both nurses and 
children. And really in this sharp mountain air, 
the liungriness of both big and little people must 
have been alarming. How the house-mother ever 
fed her household, with the only butcher’s shop 
ten miles off, was miraculous. For very often the 
usual resort of shooting-lodges entirely failed: the 
game was scarce, and hardly worth shooting, and 
in this weather the salmon absolutely refused to 
be caught. How and then a mournful-looking 
sheep was led up to the door, and offered for sale 
alive, to be consumed gradually as mutton. But 
when you have to eat an animal right through, 
you generally get a little tired of him at last. 

The food that never failed, and nobody ever 
wearied of, was the trout; large dishes of which 
appeared, and disappeared, every morning at 
breakfast. A patient guest, who could not go 
shooting, used to sit fishing for trout, hour by 
hour, in the cheerfullest manner; thankful for 
small blessings (of a pound or a pound and a half 
at most), and always hoping for the big salmon 
which he had travelled three hundred miles to 
fish for, but which never came. Each day, poor 
gentleman! he watched the dazzlingly bright sky, 
and catching the merest shadow of a cloud, would 
say, courageously, “It looks like rain! Perhaps 
the salmon may bite to-morrow.” 

L.ofC. 


100 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Of afternoons, Sunny and her mamma gener- 
ally got a little walk and talk alone together along 
the hill-side road, noticing every thing, and espe- 
cially the Highland cattle, who went about in fam- 
ily parties — the big bull, a splendid animal, black 
cr tawny, looking very fierce, but really offering 
no harm to any body ; half a dozen cows, and about 
twice that number of calves. Such funny little 
things these were ! not smooth, like English calves, 
but with quantities of shaggy hair hanging about 
them, and especially over their eyes. Papa used 
to say that his little girl, with her incessant activ- 
ity, and her yellow curls tossing wildly about on 
her forehead, was very like a Highland calf. 

At first, Sunny was rather afraid of these ex- 
traordinary beasts, so different from Southern cat- 
tle; but she soon got used to them, and as even 
the big bull did nothing worse than look at her, 
and pass her by, she would stand and watch them 
feeding with great interest, and go as close to 
them as ever she was allowed. Once she even 
begged for a little calf to play with, but as it ran 
away up the mountain-side as active as a deer, this 
was not practicable. And on the whole she liked 
the ducks and chickens best. 

And for a change she liked to walk with mam- 
ma round the old-fashioned garden. What a 
beautiful garden it was ! — shut in with high walls, 
and sloping southward down to the loch. Ho doubt 
many a Highland dame, generations back, had 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S* HOLIDAY. 


101 


taken great pleasure in it, for its fruit-trees were 
centuries old, and the box edging of its straight 
smooth gravel walks was a picture in itself. Also 
a fuchsia hedge, thick with crimson blossoms, 
which this little girl, who is passionately fond of 
flowers, could never pass without begging for “ a 
posie, to stick in my little bosie,” where it was 
kissed and “ loved ” until, generally soon enough ! 
it got broken and died. 

Equally difficult was it to pass the apples which 
lay strewn about under the long lines of espaliers, 
where Maurice and Eddie were often seen hover- 
ing about with an apple in each hand, and plenty 
more in each pocket. The Highland air seemed 
to give them unlimited digestion, but Sunny’s 
mamma had occasionally to say to her little girl 
that quiet denial, which caused a minute’s sob- 
bing, and then, known to be inevitable, was sub- 
mitted to. 

The child found it hard sometimes that little 
girls might not do all that little boys may. For 
instance, between the terrace and the pier was a 
wooden staircase with a hand-rail; both rather 
old and rickety. About this hand-rail the boys 
were forever playing, climbing up it and sliding 
down it. Sunny wanted to do the same, and one 
day her mamma caught her perched astride at the 
top, and preparing to “ slidder ” down to the bot- 
tom, in imitation of Eddie, who was urging her 
on with all his might. This most dangerous pro- 


102 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


ceeding for little girls with frocks had to be 
stopped at once; mamma explaining the reason, 
and insisting that Sunny must promise never to 
do it again. Poor little woman, she was very sad; 
but she did promise, and moreover she kept her 
word. Several times mamma saw her stand watch- 
ing the boys with a mournful countenance, but 
she never got astride on the hand-rail again. Only 
cnce — a sudden consolation occurred to her. 

“ Mamma, ’posing Sunny were some day to grow 
into a little boy, then she might slide down the 
ladder? ” 

“ Certainly, yes ! 99 answered mamma with great 
gravity, and equal sincerity. In the mean time 
she perfectly trusted her reliable child, who never 
does any thing behind her back any more than be- 
fore her face. And she let her clamber about as 
much as was practicable, up and down rocks, and 
over stone dikes, and in and out of burns, since, 
within certain limitations, little girls should be 
as active as little boys. And by degrees, Sunny, 
a strong, healthy, energetic child, began to follow 
the boys about everywhere. 

There was a byre and a hay-house, where the 
children were very fond of playing, climbing up 
a ladder and crawling along the roof to the ridge- 
tiles, along which Eddie would drag himself 
astraddle from end to end, throwing Sunny into 
an ecstacy of admiration. To climb up to the 
top of a short ladder and be held there, whence 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


103 


she could watch Eddie crawl like a cat from end 
to end of the byre, and wait till he slided down 
the tiles again, was a felicity for which she would 
even sacrifice the company of “the dear little 
baby.” 

But after all, the pier was the great resort. 
From early morning till dark, two or three of the 
children were always to be seen there, paddling 
in the shallows like ducks, with or without shoes 
and stockings, assisting at every embarkation or 
landing of the elders, and generally, by force of 
entreaties, getting — Eddie especially — “ a low ” 
on their own account several times a day. Even 
Sunny gradually came to find such fascination in 
the water, and in Eddie’s company, that if her 
mamma had not kept a sharp look-out after her, 
and given strict orders that, without herself, 
Sunny was never under any pretext to go on the 
loch at all, the two children, both utterly fearless, 
would certainly have been discovered sailing away 
like the wise men of -Gotham who “ went to sea in 
a bowl.” Probably with the same ending to their 
career ; that — 

“ If the bowl had been stronger. 

My song would have been longer! ” 

After Little Sunshine’s holiday was done, mam- 
ma, thinking over the countless risks run, by her 
own child and these other children, felt thankful 
that they had all left this beautiful glen alive. 


104 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER VIII. 

T HE days sped so fast with these happy people, 
children and “grown-ups,” as Sunny calls 
them, that soon it was already Sunday, the 
first of the only two Sundays they had to spend 
at the glen. Shall I tell about them both? 

These parents considered Sunday the best day 
in all the week, and tried to make it so; especially 
to the children, whom, in order to give the ser- 
vants rest, they then took principally into their 
own hands. They wished, that when the little 
folks grew up, Sunday should always be remem- 
bered as a bright day, a cheerful day, a day spent 
with papa and mamma; when nobody had any 
work to do, and every body was merry, and happy, 
and good. Also clean, which was a novelty here. 
Even the elders rather enjoyed putting on their 
best clothes with the certainty of not getting them 
wetted in fishing-boats, or torn with briers and 
brambles on hill-sides. Church was not till twelve 
at noon, so most of the party went a leisurely 
morning stroll, and Sunny’s papa and mamma de- 
cided to have a quiet row on the loch, in a clean 
boat, all by their two selves. But, as it happened, 
their little girl, taking a walk with her Lizzie, 
espied them afar off. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


105 


Faintly across the water came the pitiful en- 
treaty, “Papa! mamma! Take her. Take her 
with you.” And the little figure, running as fast 
as her fat legs would carry her, was seen making 
its way, with Lizzie running after, to the very 
edge of the loch. 

What heart would not have relented? Papa 
rowed back as fast as he could, and took her in, 
her face quivering with delight, though the big 
tears were still rolling down her cheeks. But 
April showers do not dry up faster than Sunny’s 
tears. 

No fishing to-day, of course. Peacefully they 
floated down the loch, which seemed to know it 
was Sunday, and to lie, with the hills standing 
round it, more restful, more sunshiny, more beau- 
tiful than ever. Not a creature was stirring; even 
the cattle that always clustered on a little knoll 
above the canal, made motionless pictures of 
themselves against the sky, as if they were sitting 
or standing for their portraits, and would not 
move upon any account. Now and then, as the 
boat passed, a bird in the bushes fluttered, but 
not very far off, and then sat on a bough and 
looked at it, too fearless of harm to fly away. 
Every thing was so intensely still, so unspeakably 
beautiful, that when mamma, sitting in the stern, 
with her arm fast round her child, began to sing 
“ Jerusalem the Golden,” and afterwards that 
other beautiful hymn, “ There is a land of pure 


106 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


delight,” the scene around appeared like an 
earthly picture of that Celestial Land. 

They rowed homeward just in time to dress for 
church, and start, leaving the little girl behind. 
She was to follow by-and-by with her Lizzie, and 
be taken charge of by mamma while Lizzie went 
to the English service in the afternoon. 

This was the morning service, and in Gaelic. 
With an English prayer-book it was just possible 
to follow it and guess at it, though the words were 
unintelligible. But they sounded very sweet, and 
so did the hymns; and the small congregation lis- 
tened as gravely and reverently as if it had been 
the grandest church in the world, instead of a 
tiny room, no bigger than an ordinary sitting- 
100m, with a communion-table of plain deal, and 
a few rows of deal benches, enough to seat about 
twenty people, there being about fifteen present 
to-day. Some of them had walked several miles, 
as they did every Sunday, and often, their good 
clergyman said, when the glen was knee-deep in 
snow. 

He himself spent his quiet days among them, 
winter and summer, living at a farm-house near, 
and scarcely ever quitting his charge. A lonelier 
life, especially in winter-time, it was hardly pos- 
sible to imagine. Yet he looked quite contented, 
and so did the Uttle congregation, as they listened 
to the short Gaelic sermon (which, of course, was 
incomprehensible to the strangers), then slowly 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


107 


went out of church and stood hanging about on 
the dike-side in the sunshine, till the second ser- 
vice should begin. 

Very soon, a few more groups were seen ad- 
vancing towards church. There was Maurice, 
prayer-book in hand, looking so good and gentle 
and sweet, almost like a cherub in a picture; and 
Eddie, not at all cherubic, but entirely boyish, 
walking sedately beside his papa; Eddie clean and 
tidy, as if he had never torn his clothes or dirtied 
his face in all his life. Then came the children’s 
parents, papa and mamma and their guests, and 
the servants of the house following. While far 
behind, holding cautiously by her Lizzie’s hand, 
and rather alarmed at her new position, was a cer- 
tain little person, who, as soon as she saw her own 
papa and mamma, rushed frantically forward to 
meet them with a cry of irrepressible joy. 

“ Sunny wants to go to church! Sunny would 
like to go to church with the little hoys, and Liz- 
zie says she mustn’t.” 

Lizzie was quite right, mamma explained ; afraid 
that so small a child might only interrupt the wor- 
ship, which she could not possibly understand. 
But she compromised the matter by promising 
that Sunny should go to church as soon as ever 
she was old enough, and to-day she should stay 
with mamma, out in the sunshiny road, and hear 
the singing from outside. 

Staying with mamma being always sufficient 


108 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


felicity, she consented to part with the little boys, 
and they passed on into church. 

By this time the post, which always came in 
between the services on Sundays, appeared, and 
the post-master, who was also school-master and 
beadle at the church — as the school, the church, 
and the post-office, were all one building — began 
arranging and distributing the contents of the 
bag. 

Every body sat down by the roadside and read 
their letters. Those who had no letters opened 
the newspapers — those cruel newspapers, full of 
the war. It was dreadful to read them, in this 
lovely spot, on this calm September Sunday, with 
the good pastor and his innocent flock preparing 
to begin the worship of Him who commanded 
“ Love your enemies ; bless them that curse you, 
do good to them that hate you, and pray for them 
that despitefully use you and persecute you/' 

Oh, what a mockery “church” seemed! You 
little children can never understand the pain of 
it; but you will when you are grown up. May 
God grant that in your time you may never suffer 
as we have done, but that His mercy may then 
have brought permanent peace ; beating “ swords 
into ploughshares, and spears into pruning- 
hooks,” for ever and ever, throughout the world! 

Sunny’s mamma prayed so with all her heart, 
when, the newspaper laid down, she sat on a stone 
outside the church, with her child playing beside 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


109 


her; far enough not to disturb the congregation, 
but near enough to catch a good deal of the ser- 
vice, which was the English Episcopal service; 
there being few Presbyterians in this district of 
Scotland, and not a Presbyterian church within 
several miles. 

Presently a harmonium began to sound, and a 
small choir of voices, singing not badly, began 
the Magnificat. It was the first time in her life 
that the little girl had heard choral music — sev- 
eral people singing all together. She pricked up 
her ears at once, with the expression of intense 
delight that all kinds of music bring into her little 
face. 

“ Mamma, is that church? Is that my papa 
singing? ” 

Mamma did not think it was, but it might be 
Maurice’s papa, and his mamma, and Lizzie, and 
several other people; Sunny must listen and be 
quite quiet, so as not to disturb them. 

So she did, good little girl! sitting as mute as 
a mouse all the while the music lasted, and when 
it ceased, playing about, still quietly; building 
pebble mountains, and gathering a few withered 
leaves to stick on the top of them. For she and 
her mamma were sitting on the gravel walk of the 
school-master’s garden ; beside a row of flower- 
pots, still radiant with geraniums and fuchsias. 
They were so close to the open window under 
which stood the pulpit, that mamma was able to 


no 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


hear almost every word of the sermon — and a 
very good sermon it was. 

When it ended, the friendly little congregation 
shook hands and talked a little; then separated, 
half going up and the other half down the road. 
The minister came home to dinner, walking be- 
tween Maurice and Eddie, of whom he was a par- 
ticular friend. They always looked forward to 
this weekly visit of his as one of the Sunday en- 
joyments, for he was an admirable hand at an oar, 
and Eddie, who tyrannized over him in the most 
affectionate way, was quite sure of “ a low ” when 
the minister was there. 

So, after dinner, all went out together, parents 
and children, pastor and flock, in two boats, and 
rowed peacefully up and down the loch, which had 
fallen into the cool gray shadow of evening, with 
the most gorgeous sunset-light resting on the 
mountains opposite, and gradually fading away, 
higher and higher, till the topmost peaks alone 
kept the glow. But that they did to the very last ; 
like a good man who, living continually in the 
smile of God, lives cheerfully on to the end. 

Sunny and her mamma watched the others, but 
did not go out, it being near the child’s bedtime; 
and unless it is quite unavoidable, nobody ever 
puts Sunny to bed, or hears her say her little pray- 
ers, except her own mamma. She went to sleep 
quite happily, having now almost forgotten to ask 
for Tommy Tinker, or any other story. The con- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Ill 


tinual excitement of her life here left her so sleepy 
that the minute she had her little night-gown on, 
she was ready to shut her eyes and go off into 
what mamma calls “ the land of Nod.” 

And so ended, for her, the first Sunday in the 
glen, which, in its cheerful, holy peace, was a 
day long to he remembered. But the little boys, 
Maurice and Eddie, who did not go to bed so early, 
after the loch grew dark, and the rowing was all 
done, spent a good long evening in the drawing- 
room, climbing on the minister’s knees, and talk- 
ing to him about boats and salmon, and all sorts 
of curious things: he was so very kind to little 
children. And after the boys were gone to bed, 
he and the elder folk gathered round the not un- 
welcome fire, and talked too. This good minis- 
ter, who spent his life in the lonely glen, with 
very little money — so little that rich Southern 
people would hardly believe an educated clergy- 
man could live upon it at all — and almost no so- 
ciety, except that of the few cottagers and farm- 
ers scattered thinly up and down, yet kept his 
heart up, and was cheerful and kindly, ready to 
help old and young, rich and poor, and never 
complaining of his dull life, or any thing else — 
this gentleman, I say, was a pattern to both great 
folk and small. 

The one only subject of discontent in the house, 
if any body could feel discontent in such a pleas- 
ant place and amid such happy circumstances, 


112 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


was the continued fine weather. While the sky 
remained unclouded, and the loch as smooth as 
glass, no salmon would bite. They kept jumping 
up ill the liveliest and most provoking way; some- 
times you could see their heads and shoulders 
clean out of water, and of course they looked big- 
ger than any salmon ever seen before. Vainly 
did the master of the house and his guests go after 
them whenever there was the least cloud on the 
sky, and coax them to bite with the most fascinat- 
ing flies and most alluring hooks: they refused to 
take the slightest notice of either. Only trout, 
and they not big ones, ever allowed themselves to 
he caught. 

The children and mammas, delighting in the 
warm sunshiny weather, did not grieve much, hut 
the gentlemen became quite low in their spirits, 
and at last, for their sakes, and especially for the 
sake of that one who only cared for fishing, and 
had come so far to fish, the whole household be- 
gan to watch the sky, and with great self-sacrifice 
to long for a day — a whole day — of good, set- 
tled, pelting rain. 

And on the Monday following this bright Sun- 
day, it seemed likely. The morning was rather 
dull, the sunshiny haze which hung over the 
mountains melted away, and they stood out sharp 
and dark and clear. Towards noon, the sky 
clouded over a little — a very little ! Hope- 
fully the elders sat down to their four o’clock 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


113 


dinner, and by the time it was over a joyful cry 
arose, 

“ It’s raining ! it’s raining ! ” 

Every body started up in the greatest delight. 
“ Now we shall have a chance of a salmon ! ” cried 
the gentlemen, afraid to hope too much. Never- 
theless, they hastily put on their great-coats, and 
rushed down to the pier, armed with a rod apiece, 
and with Donald the keeper to row them; be- 
cause if they did hook a salmon, Eddie explained, 
they would want somebody to “ low ” the boat, 
and follow the fish wherever he went. Eddie 
looked very unhappy that he himself had not this 
duty, of which he evidently thought he was capa- 
ble. But when his father told him he could not 
go, he obeyed, as he always did. He was very 
fond of his father. 

The three boys, Maurice, Eddie, and Franky — 
Phil, alas! was too ill to be much excited, even 
over salmon-fishing — resigned themselves to fate, 
and made the best of things by climbing on the 
drawing-room table, which stood in front of the 
window, and thence watching the boat as it moved 
slowly up and down the gray loch, with the four 
motionless figures sitting in it — sitting content- 
edly soaking. The little boys, Eddie especially, 
would willingly have sat and soaked too, if al- 
lowed. ♦ 

At length, as some slight consolation, and to 
prevent Eddie’s dangling his legs out at the open 
8 


114 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


window, letting in the wind and the rain, and 
running imminent risk of tumbling out, twenty 
feet or so, down to the terrace below. Sunny’s 
mamma brought a book of German pictures, and 
proposed telling stories out of them. 

They were very funny pictures, and have been 
Little Sunshine’s delight for many months. So 
she, as the owner, displayed them proudly to the 
rest, and it having been arranged with some diffi- 
culty how six pairs of eyes could look over the 
same book, the party arranged themselves thus: 
Sunny’s mamma sat on the hearth-rug, with her 
own child on her lap, Austin Thomas on one side, 
and Phil on the other; while Maurice, Eddie, and 
Franky managed as well as they could to look over 
her shoulders. There was a general sense of 
smothering and huddling up, like a sparrow’s 
nest when the young ones are growing a little too 
big: but every body appeared happy. Now and 
then, Sunshine knitted her brows fiercely, as she 
can knit them on occasion, when Austin Thomas 
came crawling too close upon her mamma’s lap, 
with his intrusively affectionate “ Danmamma,” 
but no open quarrel broke out. The room was so 
cosy and bright with fire-light, and every body 
was so comfortable, that they had almost forgot- 
ten the rain outside, also the salmon-fishing, when 
the doQr suddenly opened, and in burst the 
cook. 

Mary was a kind, warm-hearted Highland 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


115 


woman, always ready to do any thing for any 
body, and particularly devoted to the children. 
Gaelic was easier to her than English always, but 
now she was so excited that she could hardly get 
out her words. 

“ Master’s hooked a salmon ! He’s been cry- 
ing ” (calling) “ on Neil to get out another boat 
and come to him. It must he a very big salmon, 
for he is playing him up and down the loch. 
They’ve been at it these ten minutes and more.” 

Mary’s excitement affected the mistress, who 
laid down her baby. “ Where are they? Has 
any body seen them? ” 

“ Any body, ma’am ? Why every body’s down 
at the shore looking at them. The minister too* 
he was passing, and stopped to see.” 

As a matter of course, cook evidently thought. 
Even a minister could not pass by such an inter- 
esting sight. Nor did she seem in the least sur- 
prised when the mistress sent for her water-proof 
cloak, and, drawing the hood over her head, went 
deliberately out into the pelting rain, Maurice and 
Franky following. As for Eddie, at the first men- 
tion of salmon, he had been off like a shot, and 
was now seen standing on the very edge of the 
pier, gesticulating with all his might for some- 
body to take him into a boat. Alas! in vain. 

Never was there such an all-absorbing salmon. 
As Mary had said, the whole household was out 
watching him and his proceedings. The baby, 


116 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Austin Thomas, Sunny, and Sunny’s mamma, 
were left alone, to take care of one another. 

These settled down again in front of the fire, 
and Sunny, who had been a little bewildered by 
the confusion, recovered herself, and, not at all 
alive to the importance of salmon-fishing, re- 
sumed her entreating whisper. 

“ ’Bout German pictures, mamma; tell me 
’bout German pictures.” 

And she seemed quite glad to go back to her 
old ways; for this little girl likes nothing better 
than snuggling into her mamma’s lap, on the 
hearth rug, and being told about German pictures. 

They came to her all the way from Germany 
as a present from a kind German friend, and some 
of them are very funny. They make regular 
stories, a story on each page. One is about a lit- 
tle greedy boy, so like a pig, that at last being 
caught with a sweetmeat by an old witch, she 
turns him into a pig in reality. He is put into a 
sty, and just about to be killed, when his sister 
comes in to save him with a fairy rose in her hand ; 
the witch falls back/ stuck through with her own 
carving-knife, and poor piggy-wiggy, touched by 
the magic rose, turns into a little hoy again. Then 
there is another page, “ ’bout effelants,” as Sunny 
calls them — a papa elephant and a baby elephant 
taking a walk together. They come across the 
first Indian railway, and the papa elephant, who 
has never seen a telegraph wire before, is very 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


117 


angry at it and pulls it down with his trunk. 
Then there comes whizzing past a railway-train, 
which makes him still more indignant, as he does 
not understand it at all. He talks very seriously 
on the subject to his little son, who listens with a 
respectful air. Then, determined to put an end 
to such nuisances, this wise papa elephant marches 
right in front of the next train that passes. He 
does not stop it, of course, but it stops him, cut- 
ting him up into little pieces, and throwing him 
on either side the line. At which the little ele- 
phant is so frightened that you see him taking to 
his heels, very solid heels too, and running right 
away. 

Sunny heard this story for the hundredth time, 
delighted as ever, and then tried to point out to 
Austin Thomas which was the papa “ effelant ” 
and which the baby “ effelant.” But Austin 
Thomas’s more infantile capacity did not take it 
in; he only “ scrumpled ” the pages with his fat 
hands, and laughed. There might soon have been 
an open war if mamma had not soothed her little 
girl’s wounded feelings by the great felicity of 
taking off her shoes and stockings, and letting her 
warm her little feet by the fire, while she lay back 
on her mamma’s lap, sucking her Maymie’s apron. 

The whole group were in this state of perfect 
peace: outside it had grown dark, and mamma 
had stirred the fire and promised to begin a quite 
new story, when the door again opened and Eddie 


118 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


rushed in. Maurice and Frankie followed, wet, 
of course, to the skin — for each left a little pool 
of water behind him wherever he stood — but 
speechless with excitement. Shortly after, up 
came the three gentlemen, likewise silent, but not 
from excitement at all. 

“ But where’s the salmon?” asked Sunny’s 
mamma. “Pray let us see the salmon.” 

Maurice’s papa looked as solemn as — what 
shall I say? the renowned Buff, when he — 

“ Strokes his face with a sorrowful grace, 

And delivers his staff to the next place.” 

He delivered his — no, it was not a stick but 
a “ tommy ” hat, all ornamented with fishing- 
flies, and dripping with rain, to any body that 
would hang it up, and sank into a chair, saying 
mournfully, 

“ You can’t see the salmon.” 

“Why not?” 

“ Because he’s at the bottom of the loch. He 
got away.” 

“ Got away ! ” 

“ Yes, after giving us a run of a full hour.” 

“ An hour and five minutes by my watch,” 
added Sunny’s papa, who looked as dejected as 
the other two. Though no salmon-fisher, he had 
been so excited by the sport that he had sat 
drenched through and through, in the stern of 
the boat, and afterwards declared “ he didn’t know 
it had rained.” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


119 


" Such a splendid fish he was — twenty-five 
pounds at least/’ 

"Twenty,” suggested some one, who was put 
down at once with scorn. 

" Twenty-five, I am certain, for he rose several 
times, and I saw him plain. So did Donald. Oh, 
what a fish he was! And he bit upon a trout- 
line ! To think that we should have had that one 
trout-line with us, and he chose it. It could 
hardly hold him, of course. He required the ten- 
derest management. We gave him every chance ” 
(of being killed, poor fish)! "The minute he 
was hooked, I threw the oars to Donald, who 
pulled beautifully, humoring him up and down, 
and you should have seen the dashes he made! 
He was so strong — such a big fish ! ” 

" Such a big fish ! ” echoed Eddie, who stood 
listening with open mouth and eyes that gradu- 
ally become as melancholy as his father’s. 

"And, as I said, we played him for an hour 
and five minutes. He was getting quite exhausted, 
and I had just called to Neil to row close and put 
the gaff under him, when he came up to the sur- 
face — I declare, just as if he wanted to have a 
stare at me — then made a sudden dart, right 
under the boat. No line could stand that, a trout- 
line especially.” 

" So he got away? ” 

" Of course he did, with my hook in his mouth, 
the villain! I dare say he has it there still.” 


120 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


It did occur to Sunny’s mamma that the fish 
was fully as uncomfortable as the fisherman, but 
she durst not suggest this for the world. Evi- 
dently, the salmon had conducted himself in a 
most unwarranted manner, and was worthy of 
universal condemnation. 

Even after the confusion had a little abated, 
and the younger children were safely in bed, 
twenty times during tea he was referred to in the 
most dejected manner, and his present position 
angrily speculated upon — whether he would 
keep the hook in his mouth for the remainder of 
his natural life, or succeed in rubbing it off among 
the weeds at the bottom of the loch. 

“ To be sure he will, and be just as cheerful as 
ever, the wretch! Oh that I had him — hook 
and all! For it was one of my very best flies.” 

“ Papa, if you would let me ‘ low ’ you in the 
boat, while you fished, perhaps he might come 
and bite again to-morrow? ” 

This deep diplomatic suggestion of Eddie’s did 
not meet with half the success it deserved. No- 
body noticed it except his mother, and she only 
smiled. 

“Well!” she said, trying to cheer up the 
mournful company. “ Misfortunes can’t be 
helped sometimes. It is sad. Twenty-five pounds 
of fish; boiled, fried into steaks, kippered. Oh 
dear! what a help in the feeding of the house- 
hold!” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


121 


“ Yes/’ said the patient gentleman, who, being 
unable to walk, could only sit and fish, and, hav- 
ing come all the way from London to catch a sal- 
mon, had never yet had a bite except this one. 
“ Yes, twenty-five pounds at two shillings the 
pound — Billingsgate price now. That makes 
two-pound-ten of good English money gone to 
the bottom of the loch ! ” 

Every body laughed at this practical way of 
putting the matter, and the laugh a little raised 
the spirits of the gentlemen. Though still they 
mourned, and mourned, looking as wretched as 
if they had lost their whole families in the loch, 
instead of that unfortunate — or fortunate — 
salmon. 

“ It isn’t myself I care for,” lamented Maurice’s 
papa. “ It’s you others. For I know you will 
have no other chance. The rain will clear off — 
it’s clearing off now, into a beautiful starlight 
night. To-morrow will be another of those dread- 
fully sunshiny days. Not a fish will bite, and 
you will have to go home at the week’s end — 
and there’s that salmon lying snugly in his hole, 
with my hook in his mouth ! ” 

“ Never mind,” said the patient gentleman, 
who, though really the most to be pitied, bore 
his disappointment better than any body. 
“ There’s plenty of fish in the loch, for I’ve seen 
them every day jumping up; and somebody will 
catch them, if I don’t. After all, we had an 


122 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


hour’s good sport with that fellow to-day — and 
it was all the better for him that he got away.” 

With which noble sentiment the good man 
took one of the boys on his knee — his godson, 
for whom he was planning an alliance with his 
daughter, a young lady of four-and-a-half, and 
began discussing the settlements he expected — 
namely, a large cake on her side, and on the young 
gentleman’s, at least ten salmon out of the loch, 
to be sent in a basket to London. With this he 
entertained both children and parents, so that ev- 
ery body grew merry as usual, and the lost salmon 
fell into the category of misfortunes over which 
the best dirge is the shrewd Scotch proverb, “ It’s 
nae use greeting ower spilt milk.” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


123 


CHAPTER IX. 

T HE forebodings of the disappointed salmon- 
fishers turned out true. That wet Monday 
was the first and last day of rain, for weeks. 
Scarcely ever had such a dry season been known 
in the glen. Morning after morning the gentle- 
men rowed out in a hopeless manner, taking their 
rods with them, under a sky cloudless and hot as 
June: evening after evening, if the slightest 'rip- 
ple arose, they went out again, and floated about 
lazily in the gorgeous sunset, but not a salmon 
would bite. Fish after fish, each apparently big- 
ger than the other, kept jumping up, sometimes 
quite close to the boat. Some must have swum 
under the line and looked at it, made an exami- 
nation of the fly and laughed at it, but as for swal- 
lowing it, Oh dear, no! Not upon any account. 

What was most tantalizing, the gardener, going 
out one day, without orders, and with one of his 
master’s best lines, declared he had hooked a 
splendid salmon! As it got away, and also car- 
ried off the fly, a valuable one, perhaps it was ad- 
visable to call it a salmon, but nobody quite be- 
lieved this. It might have been only a large 
trout. 


124 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


By degrees, as salmon-fishing, never plentiful, 
became hopeless, and game scarcer than ever, the 
gentlemen waxed dull, and began to catch at the 
smallest amusements. They grew as excited as 
the little boys over nutting-parties, going in whole 
boat-loads to the other side of the loch, and prom- 
ising to bring home large bags of nuts for winter 
consumption, but somehow the nuts all got eaten 
before the boats reached land. 

The clergyman was often one of the nutting- 
party. He knew every nook and corner of the 
country round, was equally good at an oar or a 
fishing-rod, could walk miles upon miles across 
the mountains, and scramble over rocks as light 
as a deer. Besides, he was so kind to children, 
and took such pleasure in pleasing them, that he 
earned their deepest gratitude, as young things 
understand gratitude. But they are loving, any 
how, to those that love them, and to have those 
little boys climbing over him, and hanging about 
him, and teasing him on all occasions to give them 
“ a low/’ was, I dare say, sufficient reward for the 
good minister. 

Sunny liked him too, very much, and was de- 
lighted to go out with him. But there was such 
dangerous emulation between her and the boys 
in the matter of “ fishing ” for dead leaves, with 
a stick, which involved leaning over the boat’s 
side, and snatching at them when caught, and 
mamma got so many frights, that she was not 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


125 


sorry when the minister announced that every 
nut-tree down the canal had been “ harried ” of 
its fruit, and henceforward people must content 
themselves with dry land and blackberries. 

This was not an exciting sport, and one day the 
gentlemen got so hard up for amusement that 
they spent half the morning in watching some 
gymnastics of Maurice and Eddie, which consisted 
in climbing up to their papa’s shoulder and sit- 
ting on his head. (A proceeding which Sunny 
admired so, that she never rested till she partly 
imitated it by “ walking up mamma as if she was 
a tree,” which she did at last like a little acrobat.) 

Children and parents became quite interested 
in their mutual performances ; every body laughed 
a good deal, and forgot to grumble at the weather, 
when news arrived that a photographer, coming 
through the glen, had stopped at the house, wish- 
ing to know if the family would like their por- 
traits taken. 

Now, any body, not an inhabitant, coming 
through the glen, was an object of interest in this 
lonely place. But a photographer! Maurice’s 
papa caught at the idea enthusiastically. 

“ Have him in, by all means. Let us see his 
pictures. Let us have ourselves done in a gen- 
eial group.” 

“ And the children,” begged their mamma. 
“ Austin Thomas has never been properly taken, 
and baby not at all. I must have a portrait of 
baby.” 


126 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


“ Also,” suggested somebody, “ we might as 
well take a portrait of the mountains. They’ll 
sit for it quiet enough; which is more than can 
be said for the children, probably.” 

It certainly was. Never had a photographer 
a more hard-working morning. No blame to the 
weather, which (alas, for the salmon-fishers!) was 
perfect as ever; but the difficulty nf catching the 
sitters, and arranging them, and keeping them 
steady, was enormous. 

First, the servants all wished to be taken ; some 
separately, and then in a general group, which 
was arranged beside the kitchen door, the scullery 
being converted into a “ dark room ” for the oc- 
casion. One after the other, the maids disap- 
peared, and re-appeared full-dressed, in the most 
wonderful crinolines and chignons, but looking 
not half so picturesque as a Highland farm-girl, 
who, in her woollen striped petticoat and short 
gown, with her dark red hair knotted up behind, 
sat on the wall of the yard, contemplating the 
proceedings. 

The children ran hither and thither highly de- 
lighted, except Franky and Austin Thomas, who 
were made to suffer a good deal, the latter being 
put into a stiff white pique frock, braided with 
black braid, which looked exactly as if some one 
had mistaken him for a sheet of letter-paper and 
begun to write upon him; while Franky, dressed 
in his Sunday’s best, with his hair combed and 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


127 


face clean, was in an aggravating position for his 
ordinary week-day amusements. He consoled 
himself by running in and out among the ser- 
vants, finally sticking himself in the centre of the 
group, and being depicted there, as natural as 
life. 

A very grand picture it was, the men-servants 
being in front — Highland men always seem to 
consider themselves superior beings, and are seen 
lounging about and talking, while the women are 
shearing, or digging, or hoeing potatoes. The 
maids stood in a row behind, bolt upright, smil- 
ing as hard as they could, and little Franky occu- 
pied the foreground, placed between the garden- 
er’s knees. A very successful photograph, and 
worthy of going down to posterity, as doubtless 
it will. 

How for the children. The baby, passive in 
an embroidered muslin frock, came out, of course, 
as a white mass with something resembling a face 
at the top; but Austin Thomas was. a difficult 
subject. He wouldn’t sit still, no, not for a min- 
ute, but kept wriggling about on the kitchen 
chair that was brought for him, and looked so 
miserable in his stiff frock, that his expression 
was just as if he were going to be whipped, and 
didn’t like it at all. 

In vain Franky, who always patronized and 
protected his next youngest brother in the tender- 
est way, began consoling him, “ Never mind, son- 


128 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


nie ” — that was Franky’s pet name for Austin — 
“ they shan’t hurt you. I’ll take care they don’t 
hurt you.” 

Still, the great black thing, with the round glass 
eye fixed upon him, was too much for Austin’s 
feelings. He wriggled, and wriggled, and never 
would his likeness have been taken at all — at 
least, that morning — if somebody had not sug- 
gested “ a piece.” Off flew Mary the cook, and 
brought back the largest “ piece ” — bread with 
lots of jam upon it — that ever little Scotchman 
revelled in. Austin took it, and, being with great 
difficulty made to understand that he must pause 
in eating now and then, the photographer seized 
the happy moment, and took him between his 
mouthfuls, wflth Franky keeping guard over him 
the while, lest any body did him any harm. And 
a very good picture it is, though neither boy is 
quite handsome enough, of course. No photo- 
graphs ever are. 

Little Sunshine, meanwhile, had been deeply 
interested in the whole matter. She was quite an 
old hand at it, having herself sat for her photo- 
graph several times. 

“ Would you like to see my likenesses? ” she 
kept asking any body or every body; and brought 
down the whole string of them, describing them 
one by one : “ Sunny in her mamma’s arms, when 
she was a little baby, very cross ; ” “ Sunny just 
going to cry; ” “ Sunny in a boat; ” “ Sunny sit- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


129 


ting on a chair ; 99 “ Sunny with her shoes and 
stockings off, kicking over a basket;” and lastly 
(the little show-woman always came to this with a 
scream of delight), “ That’s my papa and mamma, 
Sunny’s own papa and mamma, both together ! 99 

Though, then, she had not been in the least 
afraid of the camera, hut, when the great glass 
eye looked at her, looked steadily at it back, still 
she did not seem to like it now. She crept beside 
her mamma and her Lizzie, looking on with curi- 
osity, but keeping a long way off, till the groups 
were done. 

There were a few more taken, in one of which 
Sunny stood in the door- way in her Lizzie’s arms. 
And her papa and mamma, who meanwhile had 
taken a good long walk up the hill-road, came 
back in time to figure in two rows of black dots 
on either side of a shady road, which were sup- 
posed to be portraits of the whole party. The 
mountains opposite also sat for their likenesses — 
which must have been a comfort to the photogra- 
pher, as they at least could not “move.” But, 
on the whole, the honest man made a good morn- 
ing’s work, and benefited considerably thereby. 

Which was more than the household did. For, 
as was natural, the cook being dressed so beauti- 
fully, the dinner was left pretty much to dress it- 
self. Franky and Austin Thomas suffered so 
much from having on their best clothes that they 
did not get over it for ever so long. And Sunny, 
9 


130 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


too, upset by these irregular proceedings, when 
taking a long promised afternoon walk with her 
papa, was as cross as such a generally good little 
girl could be : insisting on being carried the whole 
way, and carried only by her mamma. And 
though, as mamma often says, “ She wouldn’t sell 
her for her weight in gold,” she is a pretty con- 
siderable weight to carry on a warm afternoon. 

Still the day had passed pleasantly away, the 
photographs were all done, to remain as memorials 
of the holiday, long after it was ended. In years 
to come, when the children are all men and 
women, they may discover them in some nook or 
other, and try to summon up faint recollections of 
the time. Oh! if Little Sunshine might never 
cry except to be carried in mamma’s arms! and 
Austin Thomas find no sorer affliction in life than 
sitting to be photographed in stiff white clothes! 
But that can not be. They must all bear their 
burdens, as their parents did. May God take care 
of them when we can do it no more! 

The week had rolled by — weeks roll by so 
fast ! — and it was again Sunday, the last Sunday 
at the glen, and just such another as before ; calm, 
still, sunshiny: nothing but peace on earth and 
sky. Peace! when far away beyond the circle of 
mountains within which parents and children 
were enjoying such innocent pleasures, such deep 
repose, there was going on, for other parents and 
children, the terrible siege of Paris. Week by 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


131 


week, and day by day, the Germans were closing 
in round the doomed city, making ready to de- 
stroy by fire, or sword, or famine — all sent by 
man’s hand, not God’s — hundreds, thousands of 
innocent enemies. Truly, heaven will have been 
well filled, and earth well emptied during the vear 
1870. 

What a glorious summer it was, as to weather, 
will long be remembered in Scotland. Even up 
to this Sunday, the 2d of October, the air was 
balmy and warm as June. Every body gathered 
outside on the terrace, including the forlorn sal- 
mon-fishers, whose last hope was now extin- 
guished, for the patient gentleman, and Sunny’s 
papa, too, were to leave next morning. And the 
fish jumped up in the glassy loch, livelier than 
ever, as if they were having a special jubilee in 
honor of their foe’s departure. 

He sat resigned and cheerful, smoking his 
cigar, and protesting that, with all his piscatory 
disappointments, this was the loveliest place he 
had ever been in, and that he had spent the pleas- 
antest of holidays! There he was left to enjoy 
his last bit of the mountains and loch in quiet 
content, while every body else went to church. 

Even Little Sunshine. For her mamma and 
papa had taken counsel together whether it was 
not possible for her to be good there, so as at least 
to be no hindrance to other people’s going, which 
was as much as could be expected for so small a 


132 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


child. Papa doubted this, but mamma pleaded 
for her little girl, and promised to keep her good 
if possible. She herself had a great desire that 
the first time ever Sunny went to church should 
be in this place. 

So they had a talk together, mamma and Sunny, 
in which mamma explained that Sunny might 
go to church, as Maurice and Eddie did, if she 
would sit quite quiet, as she did at prayers, and 
promise not to speak one word, as nobody ever 
spoke in church excepting the minister. She 
promised, this little girl, who has such a curious 
feeling about keeping a promise, and allowed her- 
self to be dressed without murmuring — nay, with 
a sort of dignified pride — to “go to church.” 
She even condescended to have her gloves put on, 
always a severe trial ; and never was there a neater 
little figure, all in white from top to toe, with a 
white straw hat, as simple as possible, and the 
yellow curls tumbling down from under it. As 
she put her little hand in her mamma’s and they 
two started together, somewhat in advance of the 
rest, for it was a long half-mile for such baby- 
feet, her mamma involuntarily thought of a verse 
in a poem she learnt when she herself was a little 
girl: 

“ Thy dress was like the lilies, 

And thy heart was pure as they; 

One of God’s holy angels, 

Did walk with me that day,” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


133 


Only Sunny was not an angel, but an ordinary 
little girl. A good little girl, generally, but capa- 
ble of being naughty sometimes. She will have 
to try hard to be good every day of her life, as 
we all have. Still, with her sweet grave face, and 
her soft pretty ways, there was something of the 
angel about her this day. 

Her mamma tried to make her understand, in 
a dim way, what “ church ” meant — that it was 
saying “ thank you ! ” to God, as mamma did con- 
tinually; especially for His giving her her little 
daughter. How He lived up in the sky, and no- 
body saw Him, but He saw every body; how He 
loved Little Sunshine, just as her papa and mam- 
ma loved her, and was glad when she was good, 
and grieved when she was naughty. This was 
all the child could possibly take in, and even this 
much was doubtful; but she listened, seeming as 
if she comprehended a small fragment of the great 
mystery which even we parents understand so lit- 
tle. Except that when we look at our children, 
and feel how dearly we love them, how much we 
would both do and sacrifice for them, how if we 
have to punish them it is never in anger but in 
anguish and pain, suffering twice as much our- 
selves the while — then we can faintly under- 
stand how He who put such love into us, must 
Himself love infinitely more, and meant us to be- 
lieve this, when He called Himself our Father. 
Therefore it was that through her papa’s and 


134 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


mamma’s love Sunny could best be taught her first 
dim idea of God. 

She walked along very sedately, conversing by 
the way, and not attempting to dart from side to 
side, after one object or another, as this butterfly 
child always does on a week-day. But Sunday, 
and Sunday clothes, conduced exceedingly to 
proper behavior. Besides, she felt that she was 
her mamma’s companion, and was proud accord- 
ingly. Until, just before reaching the church, 
came a catastrophe which certainly could not have 
happened in any other church-going walk than 
this. 

A huge, tawny-colored bull stood in the centre 
of the road, with half a dozen cows and calves 
behind him. They moved away, feeding leis- 
urely on either side of the road, but the bull held 
his ground, looking at mamma and Sunny from 
under his shaggy brows, as if he would like to eat 
them up. 

“ Mamma, take her ! ” whispered the poor lit- 
tle girl, rathered frightened, but neither crying 
nor screaming. 

Mamma popped her prayer-book in her pocket, 
dropped her parasol on the ground, and took up 
her child on her left arm, leaving the right arm 
free. A fortnight ago she would have been 
alarmed, but now she understood the ways of 
these Highland cattle, and that they were not 
half so dangerous as they looked. Besides, the 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


135 


fiercest animal will often turn before a steady, 
fearless human eye. So they stood still, and faced 
the bull, even Sunny meeting the creature with a 
gaze as firm and courageous as her mamma’s. He 
stood it for a minute or so, then he deliberately 
turned tail, and walked up the hill-side. 

“ The big bull didn’t hurt Sunny ! He wouldn’t 
hurt little Sunny, would he, mamma ! ” said she, 
as they walked on together. She has the happiest 
conviction that no creature in the world would 
ever be so unkind as to hurt Sunny. How should 
ix — when she is never unkind to any living 
thing? When the only living thing that ever she 
saw hurt — a wasp that crept into the carriage, 
and stung Sunny on her poor little leg, and her 
nurse was so angry that she killed it on the spot — 
caused the child a troubled remembrance. She 
talked, months afterwards, with a grave counte- 
nance, of “ the wasp that was obliged to be killed, 
because it stung Sunny.” 

She soon looked benignly at the big bull, now 
standing watching her from the hill-side, and 
wanted to play with the little calves, who still 
staid feeding near. She was also very anxious to 
know if they were going to church too? But 
before the question — a rather puzzling one — 
could be answered, she was overtaken by the rest 
of the congregation, including Maurice and Ed- 
die, with their parents. The two boys only 
smiled at her, and walked into church, so good 


136 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


and grave that Sunny was impressed into preter- 
natural gravity too. When the rest were seated, 
she, holding her mamma’s hand, walked quietly 
in as if accustomed to it all, and joined the con- 
gregation. 

The seat they chose was, for precaution, the 
one nearest the door, and next to “ the pauper,” 
an old man who alone of all the inhabitants of 
the glen did not work, but received parish relief. 
He was just able to come to church, but looked 
as if he had “ one foot in the grave,” as people 
say (whither, indeed, the other foot soon followed, 
for the poor old man died not many weeks after 
this Sunday). He had a wan, weary, but uncom- 
plaining face; and as the rosy child, with her 
bright curls, her fair fresh cheeks, and plump 
round limbs, sat down upon the bench beside 
him the two were a strange and touching con- 
trast. 

Never did any child behave better than Little 
Sunshine, on this her first going to church. Yes, 
even though she soon caught sight of her own 
papa, sitting a few benches off, but afraid to look 
at her lest she should misbehave. Also of Mau- 
rice’s papa and mamma, and of Maurice and Ed- 
die themselves, not noticing her at all, and behav- 
ing beautifully. She saw them, but, faithful to 
her promise, she did not speak one word, not even 
in a whisper to mamma. She allowed herself to 
be lifted up and down, to sit or stand as the rest 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


137 


did, and when the music began she listened with 
an ecstasy of pleasure on her little face ; hut other- 
wise she conducted herself as well as if she had 
been thirteen, instead of not quite three years old. 
Once only, when the prayers were half through, 
and the church was getting warm, she gravely 
took off her hat and laid it on the bench before 
her — sitting the rest of the service with her 
pretty curls hare — hut that was all. 

During the sermon she was severely tried. Not 
by its length, for it was fortunately short, and 
she sat on her mamma’s lap, looking fixedly into 
the face of the minister, as pleased with him in 
his new position as when he was rowing her in 
the boat, or gathering nuts for her along the 
camd hank. All were listening, as attentive as 
possible, for every body loved him, Sundays and 
week-days; and even Sunny herself gazed as ear- 
nestly as if she were taking in every word he said 
— when her quick little eyes were caught by a 
new interest — a small, shaggy Scotch terrier, 
who put his wise-looking head inquiringly in at 
the open door. 

Oh, why was the church door left open? No 
doubt, so thought the luckless master of that dog- 
gie! He turned his face away; he kept as quiet 
as possible, hoping not to he discovered; hut the 
faithful animal was too much for him. In an 
ecstasy of joy, the creature rushed in and out and 
under several people’s legs, till he got to the young 


138 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


man who owned him, and then jumped upon him 
in unmistakable recognition. Happily, he did not 
bark; indeed, his master, turning red as a peony, 
held his hand over the creature’s mouth. 

What was to be done? If he scolded the dog, 
or beat him, there would be a disturbance imme- 
diately; if he encouraged or caressed him, the lov- 
ing beast would have begun — in fact, he did 
slightly begin — a delighted whine. All the per- 
plexed master could do was to keep him as quiet 
as circumstances allowed, which he managed 
somehow by setting his foot on the wildly-wag- 
ging tail, and twisting his fingers in one of the 
long ears, the dog resisting not at all. Quite con- 
tent, if close to his master, the faithful beast 
snuggled down, amusing himself from time to 
time by gnawing first a hat, and then an umbrella, 
and giving one small growl as an accidental foot- 
step passed down the road; but otherwise behav- 
ing as well as any body in church. The master, 
too, tried to face out his difficulty, and listen as 
if nothing was the matter; but I doubt he rather 
lost the thread of the sermon. 

So did Sunny’s mamma for a few minutes. 
Sunny is so fond of little doggies, that she fully 
expected the child to jump from her lap, and run 
after his one or, at least, to make a loud remark 
concerning it, for the benefit of the congregation 
generally. But Sunny evidently remembered 
that “ nobody spoke in church ; ” and possibly she 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


139 


regarded the dog’s entrance as a portion of the 
service, for she maintained the most decorous 
gravity. She watched him, of course, with all 
her eyes; and once she turned with a silent appeal 
to her mamma to look too, but said not a word. 
The little terrier himself did not behave better 
than she, to the very end of the service. 

It ended with a beautiful hymn — “ 0 Thou 
from whom all goodness flows.” Every body 
knows it, and the tune too; which I think was 
originally one of those sweet litanies to the Virgin 
which one hears in French churches, especially 
during the month of May. The little congregation 
knew it well, and sang it well too. When Sunny 
saw them all stand up, she of her own accord 
stood up likewise, mounting the bench beside the 
old pauper, who turned half round, and looked on 
the pleasant child with a faint, pathetic sort of 
smile. 

Strange it was to stand and watch the different 
people who stood singing, or listening to, that 
hymn; Maurice and Eddie, with their papa and 
mamma ; other papas and mammas with their little 
ones; farmers and farm-servants who lived in the 
glen, with a chance tourist or two who happened 
to be passing through; several old Highland 
women, grim and gaunt with long hard-working 
lives; the poor old pauper, who did not know that 
his life was so nearly over; and lastly, the little 
three-years-old child, with her blue eyes wide open 


140 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


and her rosy lips parted, not stirring a foot or a 
finger, perfectly motionless with delight. Verse 
after verse rose the beautiful hymn, not the less 
beautiful because so familiar: 

“ O Thou from whom all goodness flows, 

I lift my soul to Thee; 

In all my sorrows, conflicts, woes, 

0 Lord, remember me! 

“ When on my aching burdened heart, 

My sins lie heavily, 

Thy pardon grant, Thy peace impart, 

In love, remember me! 

“ When trials sore obstruct my way, 

And ills I can not flee, 

Oh! let my strength be as my day, 

For good, remember me! 

“ When worn with pain, disease, and grief, 

This feeble body see, 

Give patience, rest, and kind relief, 

Hear, and remember me! 

“ When in the solemn hour of death 

1 wait Thy just decree, 

Be this the prayer of my last breath, 

‘ O Lord, remember me ! ’ ” 

As Little Sunshine stood there, unconsciously 
moving her baby lips to the pretty tune — ignor- 
ant of all the words and the meaning — her 
mother, not ignorant, took the tiny soft hand in 
hers and said for her in her heart, “Amen.” 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


141 


When the hymn was done, the congregation 
passed slowly out of church, most of them stop- 
ping to speak or shake hands, for of course all 
knew one another, and several were neighbors and 
friends. Then at last Sunny’s papa ventured to 
take up his little girl, .and kiss her, telling her 
what a very good little girl she had been, and how 
pleased he w r as to see it. The minister, walking 
home between Maurice and Eddie, who seized 
upon him at once, turned round to say that he had 
never known a little girl, taken to church for the 
first time, behave so remarkably well. And 
though she was too young to understand any thing 
except that she had been a good girl, and every 
body loved her and was pleased with her, still 
Sunny also looked pleased, as if satisfied that 
church-going was a sweet and pleasant thing. 


142 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


CHAPTER X. 

L ITTLE SUNSHINE’S delicious holiday — 
equally delicious to her papa and mamma 
too — was now fast drawing to a close. This 
Sunday sunset, more gorgeous perhaps than ever, 
was the last that the assembled party of big and 
little people watched together from the terrace. 
By the next Sunday, they knew, all of them would 
be scattered far and wide, in all human probability 
never again to meet, as a collective party, in this 
world. For some of them had come from the 
“ under world/’ the Antipodes, and were going 
back thither in a few months, and all had their 
homes and fortunes widely dispersed, so as to make 
their chances of future reunion small. 

They were sorry to part, I think — even those 
who were nearly strangers to one another — and 
those who were friends were very sorry indeed. 
The children, of course, were not sorry at all, for 
they understood nothing about the matter. For 
instance, it did not occur in the least to Sunny or 
to Austin Thomas (still viewing one another with 
suspicious eyes, and always on the brink of war, 
though Sunny kept her promise, and did not at- 
tack again), that the next time they met might be 
as big boy and girl, learning lessons, and not at all 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


143 


disposed to fight ; or else as grown young man and 
woman, obliged to be polite to one another whether 
they liked it or not. 

But the elders were rather grave, and watched 
the sun set — or rather not the sun, for he was 
always invisible early in the afternoon, the house 
being placed on the eastern slope of the hill — but 
the sunset glow on the range of mountains oppo- 
site. Which, as the light gradually receded up- 
ward, the shadow pursuing, had been evening after 
evening the loveliest sight imaginable. This night 
especially, the hills seemed to turn all colors, fad- 
ing at last into a soft gray, but keeping their out- 
lines distinct long after the loch and valley were 
left dark. 

So, good-bye, sun ! When he rose again, two of 
the party would be on board a steamboat — the 
steamboat, for there was but one — sailing away 
southward, where there were no hills, no lochs, no 
salmon-fishing, no idle sunshiny days — nothing 
but work, work, work. For “ grown-ups,” as 
Sunny calls them, do really work; though, as a 
little girl once observed pathetically to Sunny’s 
mamma, “ Oh, I wish I was grown up, and then 
I might be idle! We children have to work so 
hard! while you and my mamma do nothing all 
daylong.” (Oh dear!) 

Well, work is good, and pleasant too; though 
perhaps Sunny’s papa did not exactly think so, 
when he gave her her good-night kiss, which was 


144 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


also good-bye. For he was to start so early in the 
morning that it was almost the middle of the 
night, in order to catch the steamer which should 
touch at the pier ten miles off, between six and 
seven a. m. Consequently, there was breakfast by 
candle-light, and hasty adieux, and a dreary de- 
parture of the carriage under the misty morning 
starlight; every body making an effort to be jolly, 
and not quite accomplishing it. Then every body 
or as many as had had courage to rise, went to 
bed again, and tried to sleep, with varied success, 
Sunny’s mamma with none at all. 

It recurred to her, as a curious coincidence, 
that this very day, twenty-five years before, after 
sitting up all night, she had watched, solemnly as 
one never does it twice in a life-time, a glorious 
sunrise. She thought she would go out and watch 
another, from the hill-side, over the mountains. 

My children, did you ever watch a sunrise? 
No? Then go and do it as soon as ever you can. 
Not lazily from your bed-room window, but out in 
the open air, where you seem to hear and see the 
earth gradually waking up, as she does morning 
after morning, each waking as wonderful and 
beautiful as if she had not done the same for 
thousands of years, and may do it for thousands 
more. 

When the carriage drove off, it was still star- 
light — morning starlight, pale, dreary, and ex- 
cessively cold; but now a faint colored streak of 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


145 


dawn began to put the stars out, and creep up and 
up behind the curves of .the eastern hills. Grad- 
ually, the daylight increased — it was clear 
enough to see things, though every thing looked 
cheerless and gray. The grass and heather were 
not merely damp, but soaking wet, and over the 
loch and its low-lying shores was spread a shroud 
of white mist. There was something almost pain- 
ful in the intense stillness; it felt as if all the world 
were dead and buried, and when suddenly a cock 
crew from the farm, he startled one as if he had 
been a ghost. 

But the mountains — the mountains ! Turning 
eastward, to look at them, all the dullness, solitude, 
and dreariness of the lower world vanished. They 
stood literally bathed in light, as the sun rose up 
behind them, higher and higher, brighter and 
brighter, every minute. Suddenly, an arrow of 
light shot across the valley, and touched the flat 
granite bowlder on which, after a rather heavy 
climb, Sunny’s mamma had succeeded in perching 
herself like a large bird, tucking her feet under 
her, and wrapping herself up as tightly as pos- 
sible in her plaid, as some slight protection against 
the damp cold. But when the sunshine came, 
chilliness and cheerlessness vanished. And as the 
beam broadened, it seemed to light up the whole 
world. 

How she longed for her child, not merely for 
company, though that would have been welcome in 
10 


146 


LITTLE SUNSHINE'S HOLIDAY. 


the extreme solitude, but that she might show her, 
what even such baby eyes could not but have seen 
— the exceeding beauty of God’s earth, and told 
her how it came out of the love of God, who loved 
the world and all that was in it. How He loved 
Sunny, and would take care of her all her life, as 
He had taken care of her, and of her mamma, too. 
How, if she were good and loved Him back again. 
He would be sure to make for her, through all 
afflictions, a happy life; since, like the sunrise, 
“ His mercies are new every morning, and His 
compassions fail not.” 

Warmer and warmer the cold rock grew; a few 
birds began to twitter, the cocks crowed from the 
farm-yard, and from one of the cottages a slender 
line of blue peat-smoke crept up, showing that 
somebody else was awake besides Sunny’s mamma ; 
which was rather a comfort — she was getting 
tired of having the world all to herself. 

Presently an old woman came out of a cottage- 
door, and went to the bum for water, probably 
to make her morning porridge. A tame sheep fol- 
lowed her, walking leisurely to the burn and back 
again, perhaps with an eye to the porridge-pot 
afterwards. And a lazy pussy-cat also crept out, 
and climbed on the roof of the cottage, for a little 
bit of sunshine before breakfast. Sunny’s mam- 
ma also began to feel that it was time to see about 
breakfast, for sunrise on the mountains makes one 
very hungry. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


147 


Descending the hill was worse than ascending, 
there being no regular track, only some marks of 
where the sheep were in the habit of climbing. 
And the granite rocks presented a flat sloping sur- 
face, sometimes bare, sometimes covered with 
slippery moss, which was not too agreeable. Else- 
where, the ground was generally boggy, with tufts 
of heather between, which one might step or 
jump. But as soon as one came to a level bit it 
was sure to be bog, with little streams running 
through it, which had to be crossed somehow, 
even without the small convenience of stepping- 
stones. 

Once, when her stout stick alone saved her from 
a sprained ankle, she amused herself with think- 
ing how in such a case she might have shouted 
vainly for help, and how bewildered the old woman 
at the cottage would have been on finding out 
that the large creature, a sheep as she probably 
supposed, sitting on the bowlder overhead, which 
she had looked up at once or twice, was actually 
a wandering lady! 

It was now half-past seven, and the usual break- 
fast party on the door-step was due at eight. Wel- 
come was the sound of little voices, and the patter 
of small eager feet along the gravel walk. Sunny’s 
mamma had soon her own child in her arms, and 
the other children round her, all eating bread and 
butter and drinking milk with the greatest enjoy- 
ment. The sun was now quite warm, and the mist 


148 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


had furled off the loch, leaving it clear and smooth 
as ever. 

Suddenly Eddie’s sharp eyes caught something 
there which quite interrupted his meal. It was 
a water-fowl, swimming in and out among the 
island of water-lilies, and even coming as close in 
shore as the pier. Not one of the nine geese, cer- 
tainly; this bird was dark-colored, and small, yet 
seemed larger than the water-hens, which also 
were familiar to the children. Some one suggested 
it might possibly be a wild duck. 

Eddie’s eyes brightened, “ Then might I ‘ low ’ 
in a boat, with papa’s gun, and go and shoot it? ” 

This being a too irregular proceeding, Sunny’s 
mamma proposed a medium course, namely, that 
Eddie should inform his papa that there was a 
bird supposed to be a wild duck, and then he might 
do as he thought best about shooting it. 

Maurice and Eddie were accordingly off like 
lightning; three of Maurice’s worms, which had 
taken the opportunity of crawling out of his 
pocket and on to the tray, being soon afterwards 
found leisurely walking over the bread and butter 
plate. Franky and Austin Thomas took the ex- 
citement calmly, the one thinking it a good chance 
of eating up his brothers’ rejected shares, and the 
other proceeding unnoticed to his favorite occupa- 
tion of filling the salt-cellar with sand from the 
walk. 

Soon, Donald, who had also seen the bird, ap- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


149 


peared, with his master’s gun all ready, and the 
master having got into his clothes in preter- 
naturally quick time, hurried down to the loch, 
his boys accompanying him. Four persons, two 
big and two little, after one unfortunate bird! 
which still kept swimming about, a tiny black dot; 
on the clear water, as happy and unconscious as 
possible. 

The ladies, too, soon came out and watched the 
sport from the terrace; wondering whether the 
duck was within range of the gun, and whether it 
really was a wild duck, or not. A shot, heard 
from behind the trees, deepened the interest; and 
when, a minute after, a boat containing Maurice, 
Eddie, their papa, and Donald, was seen to pull 
off from the pier, “the excitement was so great that 
nobody thought about breakfast. 

"It must be a wild duck; they have shot it: it 
will be floating on the water, and they are going 
after it in the boat.” 

“ I hope Eddie will not tumble into the water, 
in his eagerness to pull ihe bird out.” 

“ There — the gun is in the boat with them ! 
Suppose Maurice stumbles over it. and it goes off 
and shoots somebody.” 

Such were the maternal forebodings, but noth- 
ing of the sort happened, and by-and-by, when 
breakfast was getting exceedingly cold, a little 
procession, all unharmed, was seen to wind up 
from the loch, Eddie and Maurice on either side 


150 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


of their papa. He walked between them, shoulder- 
ing his gun, so that loaded or not, it could not 
possibly hurt his little boys. But he looked ex- 
tremely dejected, and so did Donald, who fol- 
lowed, bearing “ the body ” — of a poor little drip- 
ping, forlorn-looking bird. 

“ Is that the wild duck ? ” asked every body at 
once. 

“Pooh! It wasn’t a wild duck at all. It was 
only a large water-hen. Hot worth the trouble of 
shooting, certainly not of cooking. And then we 
had all the bother of getting out the gun, and 
tramping over the wet grass to get a fair shot, and, 
after we shot it, of rowing after it, to fish it up out 
of the loch. Wretched bird ! ” 

Donald, imitating his master, regarded the booty 
with the utmost contempt, even kicking it with 
his foot as it lay, poor little thing ! But no kicks 
could harm it now. Sunny only went up and 
touched it timidly, stroking its pretty wet feathers 
with her soft little hand. 

“ Mamma, can’t it fly? why doesn’t it get up 
and fly away? And it is so cold. Might Sunny 
warm it? ” as she had once tried to warm the only 
dead thing she ever saw — a little field-mouse 
lying on the garden-walk at home, which she put 
in her pinafore and cuddled up to her little 
“bosie,” and carried about with her for half an 
hour or more. 

Quite puzzled, she watched Donald carrying off 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


151 


the bird, and only half accepted mamma’s ex- 
planation that “ there was no need to warm it — 
it was gone to its bye-bye, and would not wake up 
any more.” 

Though she was living at a shooting-lodge, this 
was the only dead thing Sunny had yet chanced 
to see, for there was so little game about that the 
gentlemen rarely shot any. But this morning one 
of them declared that if he walked his legs off 
over the mountains, he must go and have a try at 
something. So off he set, guided by Donald, while 
the rest of the party fished meekly for trout, or 
went along the hill-road on a still more humble 
hunt after blackberries. Sometimes they won- 
dered about the stray sportsman, and listened for 
gun-shots from the hills — the sound of a gun 
could be heard for so very far in this still bright 
weather. And when at the usual dinner-hour he 
did not appear, they waited a little while for him. 
They were going at length to begin the meal, when 
he was seen coming leisurely along the garden 
walk. 

Eager were the inquiries of the master. “ Well 
— any grouse?” 

“ No.” 

“ Partridges? ” 

“ No.” 

“ I knew it. There has not been a partridge 
seen here for years. Snipes, perhaps? ” 

“ Never saw one.” 


152 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


“ Then what have yon been about? Have you 
shot nothing at all? ” 

“ Not quite nothing. A roe-deer. The first 
I ever killed in my life. Here, Donald.” 

With all his brevity, the sportman could not 
hide the sparkle of his eye. Donald, looking eq- 
ually delighted, unloosed the creature, which he 
had been carrying round his neck in the most af- 
fectionate manner, its fore legs clasped over one 
shoulder, and its hind legs over the other, and 
laid it down on the gravel walk. 

What a pretty creature it was, with its round 
slender shapely limbs, its smooth satin skin, and 
its large eyes, that in life would have been so soft 
and bright! They were dim and glazed now, 
though it was scarcely cold yet. 

Every body gathered round to look at it, and 
the sportsman told the whole story of his shot. 

“ She is a hind, you see ; most likely has a fawn 
somewhere not far off. For I shot her close by 
the farm here. I was coming home, not over- 
pleased at coming so empty-handed, when I saw 
her standing on the hill-top, just over that rock 
there; a splendid shot she was, but so far off that 
1 never thought I should touch her. However, I 
took aim, and down she dropped. Just feel her. 
She is an admirable creature, so fat! Quite a 
picture ! ” 

So it was, but a rather sad one. The deer lay, 
her graceful head hopelessly dangling, and bloody 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 153 

drops beginning to ooze from her open month. 
Otherwise she might have been asleep — as inno- 
cent. Sunny, who had run with the boys to see 
the sight, evidently thought she was. 

“ Mamma, look at the little baa-lamb, the dear 
little baa-lamb. Won’t it wake up?” 

Mamma explained that it was not a baa-lamb, 
but a deer, and there stopped, considering how to 
make her child understand that solemn thing, 
death; which no child can be long kept in ignor- 
ance of, and yet which is so difficult to explain. 
Meantime, Sunny stood looking at the deer, but 
did not attempt to touch it as she had touched 
the water-hen. It was so large a creature to lie 
there so helpless and motionless. At last she 
looked up, with trouble in her eyes. 

“ Mamma, it won’t wake up. Make it wake up, 
please ! ” 

“ I can’t, my darling ! ” And there came a 
choke in mamma’s throat — this foolish mamma, 
who dislikes “ sport ” — who looks upon soldiers 
as man-slayers, “ glory ” as a great delusion, and 
war a heinous crime. “ My little one, the pretty 
deer has gone to sleep, and nobody can wake it up 
again. But it does not suffer. Nothing hurts it 
now. Come away, and mamma will tell you more 
about this another day.” 

The little fingers contentedly twined themselves 
in her mamma’s, and Sunshine came away, turn- 
ing back now and then a slightly regretful look on 


154 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


the poor hind that lay there, the admiration of 
every body, and especially of the gentleman who 
had shot it. 

“ The first I ever shot,” he repeated, with great 
pride. “ I only wish I could stay and eat her. 
But the rest of you will.” (Except Sunny’s mam- 
ma, who was rather glad to be spared that satis- 
faction.) 

A single day was now all that remained of the 
visit — a day which dawned finer than ever, mak- 
ing it so hard to quit the hills, and the loch, and 
all the charms of this beautiful place. Not a cloud 
on the sky, not a ripple on the waters, blackber- 
ries saying “ come gather me,” by hundreds from 
every bramble, ferns of rare sort growing on dikes, 
and banks, and roots of trees. This whole morn- 
ing must be spent on the hill-side by Sunny and 
her mamma, combining business with pleasure, if 
possible. 

So they took a kitchen-knife as an extempore 
spade; a basket, filled with provisions, but meant 
afterwards to carry roots, and the well-known horn 
cup, which was familiar with so many burns. 
Sunny used it for all sorts of purposes besides 
drinking; filled it with pebbles, blackberries, and 
lastly with some doubtful vegetables, which she 
called “ ferns,” and dug up, and brought to her 
mamma to take home “very carefully.” 

Ere long she was left to mamma’s charge en- 
tirely, for this was the last day, and Lizzie had 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


155 


never climbed a mountain, which she was most 
anxious to do, having the common delusion that 
to climb a mountain is the easiest thing in the 
world- — as it looks, from the bottom. 

Off she started, saying she should be back again 
directly, leaving mamma and the child to watch 
her from the latest point where there was a direct 
path — the cottage where the old woman had 
come out and gone to the burn at sunrise. Behind 
it was a large bowlder, sunshiny and warm to sit 
on, sheltered by a hayrick, on the top of which 
was gambolling a pussy-cat. Sunny, with her 
usual love for animals, pursued it with relentless 
affection, and at last caught it in her lap, where 
if remained about one minute, and then darted 
away. Sunny wept bitterly, but was consoled by a 
glass of milk kindly brought by the old woman; 
with which she tried to allure pussy back again, 
but in vain. 

So there was nothing for it but to sit on her 
mamma's lap and watch her Lizzie climbing up 
the mountain, in sight all the way, but gradually 
diminishing to the size of a calf, a sheep, a rabbit ; 
finally of a black speck, which a sharp eye could 
distinguish moving about on the green hill-side, 
creeping from bush to bush, and from bowlder to 
bowlder, till at last it came to the foot of a per- 
pendicular rock. 

“ She'll no climb that," observed the old woman, 
who had watched the proceeding with much in- 


156 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


terest. “ Naebody ever does it : she’d better come 
down. Cry on her to come down.” 

~ Will she hear? ” 

“ Oh, yes.” 

And in the intense stillness, also from the law 
of sound ascending, it was curious how far one 
could hear. To mamma’s great relief, the black 
dot stopped in its progress. 

“ Lizzie, come down,” she called again, slowly 
and distinctly, and in a higher key, aware that 
musical notes will reach far beyond the speaking 
voice. “ You’ve lost the path. Come down! ” 

“ Tm coming,” was the faint answer, and in 
course of time Lizzie came, very tired, and just a 
little frightened. She had begun to climb cheer- 
fully and rapidly at first, for the hill-side looked 
in the distance nearly as smooth as an English 
field. When she got there, she found it was rather 
different — that heather-bushes, bowlders, mosses, 
and bogs, were not the pleasantest walking. Then 
she had to scramble on all-fours, afraid to look 
downward, lest her head should turn dizzy, and 
she might lose her hold, begin rolling and rolling, 
and never stop till she came to the bottom. Still, 
she went on resolutely, her stout English heart not 
liking to be beaten even by a Scotch mountain; 
clinging from bush to bush — at this point a small 
wood had grown up — until she reached a spot 
where the rock was perpendicular, nay, overhang- 
ing, as it formed the shoulder of the hill. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


157 


“ I might as well have climbed up the side of 
a house,” said poor Lizzie, forlornly; and looked 
up at it, vexed at being conquered, but evidently 
thankful that she had got down alive. “ Another 
time — or if I have somebody with me — I do be- 
lieve I could do it.” 

Bravo, Lizzie! Half the doings in the world 
are done in this spirit. Never say die! Try again. 
Better luck next time. 

Meanwhile she drank the glass of milk offered 
by the sympathizing old Highland woman, who 
evidently approved of the adventurous English 
girl, then sat down to rest beside Little Sunny. 

But Sunny had no idea of resting. She never 
has, unless in bed and asleep. Now she was bent 
upon also climbing a mountain — a granite 
bowlder about three feet high. 

“ Look, mamma, look at Sunny ! Sunny’s going 
to climb a mountain, like Lizzie.” 

Up she scrambled with both arms and legs — 
catching at the edges of the bowlder, but tum- 
bling back again and again. Still she was not 
daunted. 

“ Don’t help me ! — don’t help me ! ” she kept 
saying. “ Sunny wants to climb a mountain all 
by her own self.” 

Which feat she accomplished at last, and suc- 
ceeded in standing upright on the top of the 
bowlder, very hot, very tired, but triumphant. 

“ Look, mamma ! look at Sunny ! Here she is ! ” 


158 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Mamma looked; in fact, had been looking out 
of the corner of her eye the whole time; though 
not assisting at all in the courageous effort. 

“Yes, I see. Sunny has climbed a mountain. 
Clever little girl ! Mamma is so pleased ! ” 

How many “ mountains ” will she climb in her 
life, that brave little soul ! Mamma wonders often, 
hut knows not. Nobody knows. 

In the mean time success was won. She, her 
mamma, and her Lizzie, had each “ climbed a 
mountain.” But they all agreed that though 
pleasant enough in its way, such a performance 
was a thing not to he attempted every day. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


159 


CHAPTER XI. 

T HE last day came — the last hour. Sunny, 
her mamma, and her Lizzie, had to turn 
their ways homeward — a long, long journey 
of several hundred miles. To begin it at four in 
the morning, with a child, too, was decided as im- 
practicable; so it was arranged that they should 
leave over-night, and sleep at the only available 
place, an inn which English superiority scornfully 
termed a “ public-house,” but which here in the 
Highlands was called the “ hotel,” where “ gentle- 
men could be accommodated with excellent shoot- 
ing-quarters/’ Therefore, it was supposed to be 
able to accommodate a lady and a child — for one 
night at least. 

Fortunately, the shooting gentlemen did not 
avail themselves of it; for the hotel contained 
only two guest-rooms. These being engaged, and 
the exact time of the boat next morning learnt — 
which was not so easy, as everybody in the neigh- 
borhood gave different advice, and a different 
opinion — the departure was settled. 

Lovelier than ever looked the hills and the loch 
when the carriage came round to the door. All 
the little boys crowded round it with vociferous 


160 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


farewell — which they evidently thought great 
fun — Sunny likewise. 

“ Good-bye ! good-bye ! ” cried she, as cheerfully 
as if it had been “ how d’ye do/’ and obstinately 
refused to he kissed by any body. Indeed, this 
little girl does not like kisses, unless she offers 
them of her own accord. 

One only grief she had, but that was a sharp 
one. Maurice’s papa, who had her in his arms, 
suddenly proposed that they should “ send mam- 
ma away, and keep Sunny ; ” and the scream of 
agony she gave, and the frantic way she clung to 
her mamma, and would not look at any body for 
fear of being kept prisoner, was quite pathetic. 

At last the good-byes were over. For Little 
Sunshine these are as yet meaningless ; life to her 
is a series of delight — the new ones coming as 
the old ones go. The felicity of kissing her hand 
and driving away, was soon followed by the amuse- 
ment of standing on her mamma’s lap, where she 
could see every thing along the road, which she 
had passed a fortnight before in dark night. 

Now it was golden twilight — such a twilight! 
A year or two hence Sunny would have been in 
ecstacy at the mountains, standing range behind 
range, literally transfigured in light, with the 
young moon floating like a “ silver boat ” (only 
turned the wrong way uppermost) over their tops. 
As it was, the large distant world interested her 
less than the small near one — the trees that swept 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


161 


her face as she drove along the narrow road, and 
the numerous cows and calves that fed on either 
side of it. 

There was also a salt-water loch, with fishing- 
boats drawn up on the beach, and long fishing- 
nets hanging on poles; but not a living creature in 
sight, except a heron or two. These stood on one 
leg, solemnly, as herons do, and then flew off, flap- 
ping their large wings with a noise that made 
Little Sunshine, as she expressed it, “ nearly 
jump.” Several times, indeed, she “ nearly 
jumped ” out of the carriage at the curious things 
she saw : such funny houses, such little windows — 
“ only one pane, mamma ” — and above all, the 
girls and boys barefooted, shock-headed, that hung 
about staring at the carriage as it passed. 

“ Have those little children got no Lizzie to 
comb their hair?” she anxiously inquired; and 
mamma was obliged to confess that probably they 
had not, at which Sunny looked much surprised. 

It was a long, long drive, even with all these 
entertainments; and before it ended, the twilight 
had faded, the moon crept higher over the hill, 
and Sunshine asked in a whisper for “ Maymie’s 
apron.” The little “ Maymie’s apron,” which had 
long lain in abeyance, was produced, and she soon 
snuggled down in her mamma’s arms and fell fast 
asleep. 

When she woke up the “ hotel ” was reached. 
Such a queer hotel ! You entered by a low door- 

11 


162 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


way, which opened into the kitchen below, and a 
narrow staircase leading to the guest-rooms above. 
From the kitchen Sunny heard a baby cry. She 
suddenly stopped, and would not go a step till 
mamma had promised she should see the baby — 
a very little baby, only a week old. Then she 
mounted with dignity up the rickety stairs, and be- 
gan to examine her new apartments. 

They were only two, and as homely as they well 
could he. Beside the sitting-room was a tiny bed- 
room, with a “ hole in the wall/’ where Lizzie was 
to sleep. This “ hole in the wall ” immediately 
attracted Sunny; she jumped in it, and began 
crawling about it, and tried to stand upright un- 
der it, which, being such a very little person, she 
was just able to do. Finally, she wanted to go to 
sleep in it, till, hearing she was to sleep with mam- 
ma, a much grander thing, she went up to the bed, 
and investigated it with great interest likewise. 
Also the preparations for her hath, which was to 
be in a washing-tub in front of the parlor fire — 
a peat fire. It had a delicious, aromatic smell, and 
it brightened up the whole room, which was very 
clean and tidy, after all. 

So was the baby, which shortly appeared in its 
mother’s arms. She was a pale, delicate woman, 
speaking English with the slow precision of a 
Highlander, and having the self-composed, courte- 
ous manner that all Highlanders have. She looked 
much pleased when her baby was admired — 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


363 


though not by Sunny, who, never having seen so 
young a baby before, did not much approve of it, 
and especially disapproved of seeing it taken into 
her own mamma’s arms. So presently it and its 
mother disappeared, and Sunny and her mamma 
w T ere left to eat their supper of milk, bread and 
butter, and eggs; which they did with great con- 
tent. Sunny was not quite so content to go to 
bed, but cried a little, till her mamma set the 
parlor-door half open, that the fire-light might 
shine in. Very soon she also crept in beside her 
little girl; who was then not afraid of any thing. 

But when they woke, in the dim dawn, it was 
under rather “ frightening ” circumstances. There 
was a noise below, of a most extraordinary kind, 
shouting, singing, dancing — yes, evidently danc- 
ing, though at that early hour of the morning. 
It could not have been continued from overnight, 
mamma having distinctly heard all the family go 
to bed, the children tramping loudly up the stairs, 
at nine o’clock, after which the inn was quite quiet. 
No, these must be new guests, and very noisy 
guests too. They stamped, they beat with their 
feet, they cried “ whoop ! ” or “ hech ! ” or some 
other perfectly unspellable word, at regular inter- 
vals. Going to sleep again was impossible; espe- 
cially as Sunny, unaccustomed to such a racket, 
began to nry, and would have fallen into a down- 
right sobbing fit, but for the amusement of going 
to the “hole in the wall/’ to wake her Lizzie. 


164 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Upon which every body rose, the peat fire was re- 
kindled, and the new day began. 

The good folk below stairs must have begun it 
rather early. They were a marriage party who had 
walked over the hills, several miles, to see the 
bride and bride-groom off by the boat. 

“ Sunny wants to look at them,” said the child, 
who listens to every thing, and wants to have a 
finger in every pie. 

So, as soon as dressed, she was taken down, and 
stood at the door in her mamma’s arms to see the 
fun. 

Very curious “fun” it was. About a dozen 
young men and women, very respectable-looking, 
and wonderfully dressed, though the women had 
their muslin skirts ^pretty well draggled — not sur- 
prising, considering the miles they had trudged 
over mountain and bog, in the damp dawn of the 
morning — were dancing with all their might and 
main, the lassies with their feet, the lads with feet, 
heads, hands, tongues, snapping- their fingers and 
crying “ hech ! ” or whatever it was, in the most 
exciting manner. It was only excitement of danc- 
ing, however; none of them seemed the least 
drunk. They stopped a minute, at sight of the 
lady and child, and then went on again, dancing 
most determinedly, and as solemnly as if it were 
to save their lives, for the next quarter of an hour. 

English Lizzie, who had never seen a Highland 
reel before, looked on with as much astonishment 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


165 


as Sunny herself. That small person, elevated in 
her mamma’s arms, gazed on the scene without a 
single smile; there being no music, the dance was 
to her merely a noise and a scuffle. Presently she 
said gravely, “ Now Sunny will go away.” 

They went away, and after drinking a glass of 
milk — oh, what delicious milk those Highland 
cows give ! — they soon heard the distant paddles 
of the boat, as she steamed in between the many 
islands of which this sea is full. Then mounting 
an extraordinary vehicle, which in the hill was 
called a “ carridge,” they headed a procession, con- 
sisting of the wedding party walking sedately two 
and two, a young man and young woman arm in 
arm, down to the pier. The married couple were 
put on board the boat (together with Sunny, her 
mamma, and her Lizzie, who all felt very small, 
and of no consequence whatever), then there was 
a great shouting and waving of handkerchiefs, and 
a spluttering and splattering of Gaelic good wishes, 
and the vessel sailed away. 

By this time it was broad daylight, though no 
sun was visible. Indeed, the glorious sunrises 
seemed ended now ; it was a gray, cheerless morn- 
ing, and so misty that no mountains could be seen 
to take farewell of. The delicious Highland life 
was all gone by like a dream. 

This homeward journey was over the same route 
that Sunny had travelled a fortnight before, and 
she went through it in much the same fashion. 


166 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


She ran about the boat, and made friends with 
half a dozen people, for no kindly face is long a 
strange face to Little Sunshine. She was noticed 
even by the grim weather-beaten captain (he had 
a lot of little people of his own, he said), only 
when he told her she was “ a bonnie wee lassie,” 
she once more indignantly repelled the accusation. 

“ Fm not a bonnie wee lassie. Fm Sunny, mam- 
ma’s little Sunny,” repeated she, and would not 
look at him for at least two minutes. 

She bore the various changes from sea-boat to 
canal-boat, etc., with her usual equanimity. At 
one place there was a great crush, and they got 
so squeezed up in a crowd that her mamma did 
not like it at all, but Sunny was perfectly com- 
posed, mamma’s arms being considered protection 
against any thing. And when the nine locks came, 
she cheerfully disembarked and walked along the 
towing-path for half a mile, in the bravest man- 
ner. Gradually, as amusement began to fail her, 
she found several playfellows on board, a little dog 
tied by a string, and a pussy cat shut up in a 
hamper, which formed part of the luggage of an 
unfortunate gentleman travelling to London with 
five daughters, six servants, and about fifty boxes 
— for he was overheard counting them. In the 
long, weary transit between the canal-boat and the 
sea, Sunny followed this imprisoned cat, which 
mewed piteously; and in its sorrows she forgot her 
* own. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


167 


But she was growing very tired, poor child! 
and the sunshine, which always has a curious effect 
upon her temper and spirits, had now altogether 
disappeared. A white, dull, chill mist hung over 
the water, fortunately not thick enough to stop 
traffic, as had happened two days before, hut still 
enough to make the river very dreary. Little Sun- 
shine, too, went under a cloud ; she turned 
naughty, and insisted on doing whatever she was 
hid not to do; climbing in the most dangerous 
places, leaning over the boat’s side to look at the 
waves; misbehavior which required a strong hand 
and watchful eyes to prevent serious consequences. 
But mamma was more sorry than angry, for it was 
hard for the little woman; and she was especially 
touched when, being obliged to forbid some stale 
unwholesome fruit and doubtful “ sweeties,” over 
which Sunny lingered and longed, by saying “ they 
belonged to the captain,” the child answered 
sweetly, 

“But if the kind captain were to give Sunny 
some, then she might have them?” 

•The kind captain not appearing, alas ! she 
passed the basket with a sigh, and went down to 
the engines. To see the gigantic machinery turn- 
ing and turning, never frightened hut only de- 
lighted her. And mamma was so thankful to find 
any thing to break the tedium of the fourteen 
hours’ journey, that though her little girl went 
down to the engine-room neat and clean in a white 


168 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


pelisse, and came up again looking just like a little 
sweep, she did not mind it at all! 

Daylight faded; the boat emptied gradually of 
its passengers, including the gentleman with the 
large family and the fifty boxes; and on deck it 
began to grow very cold. Sunny had made ex- 
cursions down below for breakfast, dinner, and 
tea, at all of which meals she conducted herself 
with the utmost propriety, but now she took up her 
quarters permanently in the comfortable saloon. 

Not to sleep, alack! though her mamma settled 
down in a corner, and would have given any thing 
for "just one little minute,” as Sunny says, of 
quiet slumber, hut the child was now preter- 
naturally wide awake, and as lively as a cricket. 
So was a little boy, named Willie, with whom she 
had made friends, and was on such terms of in- 
timacy that they sat on the floor and shared their 
food together, and then jumped about, playing at 
all sorts of games, and screaming with laughter, 
so that even the few tired passengers who remained 
in the boat, as she steamed up the narrow, foggy 
river, could not help laughing too. • 

This went on for the space of two hours more, 
and even then, Sunny, who was quite good now, 
was with difficulty caught and dressed, in prepara- 
tion for the stopping of the boat, when she was 
promised she should see papa. But she will endure 
any martyrdom of bonnet-tying or hoot-buttoning 
if only she thinks she is going to meet her papa. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


169 


Unluckily there had been some mistake as to 
hours, and when she was carried on deck, in the 
sudden darkness, broken only by the glimmer of 
the line of lights along the wharf, and plunged 
into the midst of a dreadful confusion — porters 
leaping on board and screaming to passengers, and 
passengers searching wildly for their luggage — 
no papa was there. To double her grief, she also 
lost her mamma, who of course had to see to things 
at once herself. Through the noise and whirl she 
heard the voice of the child, “ Mamma ! mamma ! ” 
It was a cry not merely of distress — but agony, 
with a “ grown-up ” tone in it of actual despair. 
Uo doubt the careless jest of Maurice’s papa had 
rankled in her little mind, and she thought mam- 
ma was torn from her in real truth, and forever. 

When at last mamma came back, the grasp with 
which the poor little girl clung to her neck was 
absolutely frantic. 

“ Mamma went away and left Sunny — Sunny 
lost mamma,” and mamma could feel the little 
frame shaking with terror and anguish. Poor 
lamb! there was nothing to be done but to take 
her and hold her tight, and stagger with her some- 
how across the gangway to the cab. But even 
there she never loosened her clasp for a minute 
till she got safe into a bright warm house, where 
she found her own papa. Then the little woman 
was content. 

She had still another journey before her, and 


170 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


without her papa too. A night journey, which 
promised to be easy and comfortable, but turned 
out quite the contrary. A journey in which 
Sunny’s powers of endurance were taxed to the 
utmost, so that it will be years before she forgets 
the wind-up of her holiday. 

Her papa put his family safe in a carriage all 
to themselves, and under special charge of the 
guard. Then he left them, just settling down to 
sleep; Sunny being disposed of in a snug corner, 
with an air-cushion for a pillow, and furry shawls 
wrapped about her, almost as cozy as in her own 
little crib, in which, after her various changes and 
vicissitudes, she was soon to repose once more. 

She fell asleep in five minutes, and her mam- 
ma, who was very tired, soon dozed also, until 
roused by a sharp cry of fright. There was the 
poor little girl, lying at the bottom of the carriage, 
having been thrown there by its violent rocking. 
It rocked still, and rocked for many many miles, 
in the most dreadful manner. When it stopped 
the guard was appealed to, who said it was “ the 
coupling-chains too slack,” and promised to put 
all right. So the travellers went to sleep again, 
this time Sunny in her mamma’s arms, which she 
refused to quit. 

Again more jolting, and another catastrophe; 
mamma and the child finding themselves lying 
both together on the floor. This time Sunny was 
much frightened, and screamed violently, re- 
pulsing even her mamma. 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


171 


“ I thought you were not my own mamma ; I 
thought you were somebody else,” said she after- 
wards, and it was a long time before she came to 
her right self and cuddled down; the oscillation 
of the carriage continuing so bad that it was as 
much as her mamma could do, by wrapping her 
own arms round her, to protect the poor child 
from being hurt and bruised. 

The guard, again appealed .to, declared there 
was no danger, and that he would find a more 
comfortable carriage at the next stopping-place: 
but in vain. It was a full train, and the only two 
seats vacant were in a carriage full of gentlemen, 
who might object to a poor, sleepy, crying child. 
The little party went hopelessly back. 

“ Perhaps those gentlemen might talk so loud 
they might waken Sunny,” said the child sagely, 
evidently remembering her experiences of five 
weeks ago. At any rate, nobody wished to try the 
experiment. 

Since there was no actual danger, the only 
remedy was endurance. Mamma settled herself 
as firmly as she could, making a cradle of her 
arms. There, at length, the poor child, who had 
long ceased crying, and only gave an occasional 
weary moan, fell into a doze, which ended in quiet 
sleep. She was very heavy, and the hours seemed 
very long, but still they slipped away somehow. 
Nothing is absolutely unbearable when one feels 
that, being inevitable, it must be borne. 


172 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


Of course nobody slept, except the child, until 
near day-break, when a new and more benevolent 
guard came to the rescue, had the coupling-chains 
fastened (which, they found, had never been done 
at all till now), and lessened the shaking of the 
carriage. Then tired Lizzie dropped asleep too, 
and the gray morning dawned upon a silent car- 
riage, sweeping rapidly across the level English 
country, so different from that left behind. No 
more lochs, no more mountains. No more sun- 
shine neither, as it appeared; for there was no 
sign of sunrise, and the day broke amidst pelting 
rain, which kept drip, drip, upon the top of the 
carriage, till it seemed as if a deluge would soon 
be added to the troubles of the journey. 

But these were not so bad now. Very soon the 
little girl woke up, neither frightened nor cross, 
but the same sunshiny child as ever. 

“ Mamma ! ” she said, and smiled her own beam- 
ing smile, and sat up and looked about her. “ It’s 
daylight. Sunny w*ants to get up.” 

That getting up was a most amusing affair. It 
lasted as long as mamma’s ingenuity could pos- 
sibly make it last, without any assistance from poor 
worn-out Lizzie, who was left to sleep her fill. 
First, Sunny’s face and hands had to be washed 
with a damp sponge, and wiped with mamma’s 
pocket-hand kercfief. Then her hair was combed 
and brushed, with a brush that had a looking-glass 
on the back of it; in which she contemplated her- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


173 


self from time to time, laughing with exceeding 
merriment. Lastly, there was breakfast to he got 
ready, and eaten. 

A most original breakfast! Beginning with a 
large pear, out of a basketful which a kind old 
gentleman had made up as a special present to 
Sunny ; then some ham sandwiches — from which 
the ham was carefully extracted ; then a good drink 
of milk. To uncork the bottle in which this milk 
had been carried, and pour it into the horn cup 
without spilling, required an amount of skill and 
care which occupied both mamma and Sunny for 
ever so long. In fact, they spent over their dress- 
ing and breakfasting nearly an hour; and by this 
time they were both in the best of spirits, and be- 
nignly compassionate to Lizzie, who slept on, and 
wanted no breakfast. 

And when the sun at last came out, a watery 
and rather melancholy orb, not at all like the sun 
of the Highlands, the child was as bright and 
merry as if she had not travelled at all, and played 
about in the railway-carriage just as if it were her 
own nursery. 

This was well, for several weary hours had still 
to be passed; the train was far behind its time; 
and what poor mamma would have done without 
the unfailing good temper of her “sunshiny 
child,” she could not tell. When London was 
reached, and the benevolent guard once more put 
his head into the carriage, with “ Here we are at 


174 


LITTLE SUNSHINE S HOLIDAY. 


last. I should think you’d had enough of it, 
ma’am,” even he could not help giving a smile to 
the “ little Missy ” who was so merry and so good. 

In London was an hour or two more of weary 
delay; but it was under a kindly roof, and Sunny 
had a second beautiful breakfast, all proper, with 
tea-cups and a table-cloth ; which she did not seem 
to find half so amusing as the irregular one in the 
railway-carriage. But she was very happy, and 
continued happy, telling all her adventures in 
Scotland to a dear old Scotchwoman whom she 
loves exceedingly, and who loves her back again. 
And being happy, she remained perfectly good, 
until once more put into a “ puff-puff,” to be 
landed at her own safe home. 

Home. Even the child understood the joy of 
going home. She began talking of “ Sunny’s 
nursery ; ” " Sunny’s white pussy ; ” “ Sunny’s 
little dog Rose ; ” and recalling all the servants by 
name, showing she forgot nothing and nobody, 
though she had been absent so long. She chat- 
tered all the way down, till some ladies who were 
in the carriage could hardly believe she had been 
travelling all night. And when the train stopped, 
she was the first to look out of the window and 
call out “ There’s godmamma ! ” 

So it was ! Sunny’s own kind godmamma, come 
unexpectedly to meet her and her tired mamma 
at the station; and oh! they were both so glad! 

“ Glad ” was a small word to express the per- 


LITTLE SUNSHINE’S HOLIDAY. 


175 


feet and entire felicity of getting home — of find- 
ing the house looked just as usual; that the 
servants’ cheerful faces beamed welcome; that 
even the doggie Eose harked, and white pussy 
purred, as if both were glad Little Sunshine was 
back again. She marched up stairs, lifting her 
short legs deliberately one after the other, and re- 
fusing to he carried; then ran into her nursery, 
just as if she had left it only yesterday. And she 
“ allowed ” her mamma to have dinner with her 
there, sitting at table, as grand as if she were giv- 
ing a dinner-party; and chattering like a little 
magpie to the very end of the meal. 

But after that she collapsed. So did her mam- 
ma. So did her Lizzie. They were all so dread- 
fully tired that human nature could endure no 
more. Though it was still broad daylight, and 
with all the delights of home around them, they 
went to bed, and slept straight on — mamma “ all 
round the clock,” and the child and her Lizzie for 
fourteen hours! 

Thus ended Little Sunshine’s Holiday. It is 
told just as it happened, to amuse other little 
people, who no doubt are as fond as she is of hear- 
ing “ stories.” Only this is not a story, but the 
real truth. Hot the whole truth, of course, for 
that would be breaking in upon what grown-up 
people term “ the sanctities of private life.” But 
there is no single word in it which is not true. I 
hope you will like it, little people, simple as it is. 
And so, good-bye! 


THE END. 























































































































































































































































































































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